Well. We are back to our ordinary lives. Juggling Nobel event with the last week of class and finals weeks has been a bit of a challenge. But with lots of help from our TAs (thanks, Will, Mackenzie, and Chris), from the department (thanks, Mitch and Susan) and science and engineering computing (thanks Kevin) we are close to the finish line. I will be posting detail of the Big Day in between bouts of grading. After I get my grades in, i’ll complete the arc of Nobel week.

That evening, we attended the Nobel Prize concert featuring the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and soloist Joseph Calleja. We had amazing seats, just two seats over and one back from the Queen of Sweden! This was a bravura performance with three encores. Seems I had forgotten the effect of a wonderful tenor voice. At intermission, the crowd was served Champagne. Pictures for now. More on the music later.

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Team luncheons were planned for immediately after the Physics lectures. The High Z Supernova search team held its luncheon in a private room in one of the best restaurants in Stockholm. The laureates, arriving after a photo shoot, were greeted with applause. The sommelier had prepared wine parings for each course. Brian Schmidt who, in all his spare time, is a vintner approved the list and the party took flight. We started with a Champagne toast. Adam Riess and his wife, Nancy, had arrange for silver cufflinks to be engraved with:

q₀ < 0

(q naught is the deceleration parameter the team was originally planning to measure using supernovae as distance indicators.) The whole team was to wear them at the Nobel ceremony and the King’s banquet. Each team member was came forward to collect their cufflinks to raucous applause. Brian has arranged to have a permanent testimony to the role of the team in the discovery that led to the Nobel prize. (More on this later when this is officially announced.) All team members signed books, preprints, the first page of the paper that led to the Nobel, and a limited edition re-print of the paper. We dined on a delicious meal of:

SHIITAKE CONSOMMÉ with poached farm egg and tarragon

SALMA SALMON TARTARE with oyster and samphire

APPLE SMOKED WAGUY RIBS with wine braised winter cabbage

MANDARIN SOUFFLÉ with  chocolate ice cream

We almost caused the chef to have a nervous breakdown when the team left the restaurant just before dessert was served to take advantage of the last few minutes of sunlight for a group picture. But we were soon called to order by Brian’s injunction not to mess with a chef and his soufflé.

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We are off early again on Wednesday, December 7. Because everyone knows that Astrophysicists do their best work at the break of dawn. We filed into a beautiful auditorium filled with flowers. Friends and family of the three laureates had reserved seats in the first three rows of the hall. The laureates were introduced and proceeded to give an overview of the research that lead to the Nobel Prize. Brian Schmidt went first, Adam Riess was second, and Saul Perlmutter closed with a beautiful paean to the team work that goes into such discoveries. You can see Adam Riess’ Nobel lecture here. Brian Schmidt’s is here. And Saul Perlmutter’s is here.

This is the first ticketed event for us. We travel once again to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, this time after dark. Lit fires illuminate the path up to the Academy. Tickets are scanned and checked against our ID. We a funneled into coat check and end up in beautiful rooms filled with chemists, physicists, economists and their friends and family. Wine and hors d’oeuvres are served. We greet old friends and hob nob with the laureates. The Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is there.

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We are careful not to eat too much because we are off to have dinner with Bob Kirshner and Jayne Loader later that evening. At the restaurant, the food is fantastic, the company better. We engage in a four hour epicurean adventure, catching up on life, reminiscing about old times.

The Nobel Prize Ticket Packets and Programs.

Among his tickets to the Nobel Prize events, Peter found a Key to the City! We used it to go to the Moderna Museet’s “Turner, Monet, Twombly” exhibit on Tuesday. Most of the Monets were new to us as they came from collections we had never had access to. The Londres, le Parlement, trouée de brouillard (1904) was a wonderful study of the effects of coal smog on light. The late paintings of Turner, including Sun Setting over a Lake (1840), were also a revelation. The curator did a wonderful job grouping different treatments of light. On Wednesday, we used the key to go on a boat tour of Stockholm. Security is tight for all the ticketed Nobel events. We must go to each of the events with our ID.

– Adam Riess responding to a reporter’s question about the new power that comes with the Nobel Prize.

A remarkable number of people were off to an early morning conference. The Sun had not risen. Well, it was only 8:15am. We all piled into a bus which drove us to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. On the way there, we met the Saul Perlmutter’s “proud parents” and sister. We walked up the hill to the Academy and picked up the press release on the way to the auditorium where the press conference was being held.

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Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess at the press conference.

The Nobel laureates in Physics, Chemistry, and Economics filed in and were introduced by the head of the Royal Academy. They were all asked what their research/field is useful for. Answer: WIFI, GPS. It was noted that the Physics laureates had won for the work of large international collaborations. The three Physics laureates were asked whether these kind of collaborations represent the future of the research in their field. Answer: Yes. Even the telescopes that are used to make these great discoveries represent the work of a large group of people. The press seemed to focus quite a bit on the Chemistry laureate whose work people had at first rejected.

Peter and Arielle after the press conference.