Cosmic microwave background and the infant universe.
From the WMAP science team.It was on the UC Berkeley astronomy website this morning that I was reminded of something I had wanted to post for QUEST. About a month ago, Cal publicly announced the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics. This was quite a big deal for the Physics and Astronomy departments at Berkeley.
The center was founded by George Smoot, who won the Nobel Prize in 2006 and was the focus of a QUEST TV segment. As described in our press release, George donated the bulk of his prize money to the founding of this new center. His donation seeded the center which now has an endowment exceeding $8 million in little more than a year of fund-raising. After watching my girlfriend raise funds for non-profits around SF, I can say that is quite impressive.
The center and endowment ensure that Berkeley remains competitive for years to come in the field of cosmology research. It helps Cal recruit excellent researchers by providing funds for postdoctoral researchers and students. The people supported by the Center can choose any project in the department, projects that I have covered in several of my QUEST articles. It also gives new post-docs the freedom to explore the department before starting on a specific project. This differs from the usual postdoctoral researcher who is recruited by a specific faculty member for a specific project.
The center will also sponsor researchers' visits to Berkeley from other institutions, educational outreach to K-12 science teachers and several collaborative international workshops on cosmology each year.
Berkeley is actually both one of the first and one of the latest institutions to establish a center for cosmology research. In the '90s, we had the Center for Particle Astrophysics, which was funded for 10 years by NSF. I think this was one of the first of its kind.
