Monthly Archives: December 2011

Accelerating Thanks

04 Sunday Dec 2011

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Congratulations Peter! With our Department Chair in the background, Peter portions off the chocolate ganache cake. Adam Riess' flowers served as a centerpiece.

Along the way, we are collecting artifacts that commemorate Peter’s link to the Nobel: newspaper articles that mention or focus on this, a screenshot of the Notre Dame website when it featured a story about Peter’s invitation to Stockholm, the corks from our Champagne toast with students and colleagues.

Cathie Garnavich read all the papers that were featured on the place holders. Now that is dedication to your craft!

We kept the note that came with the flowers. But we think no one else in the team has anything comparable to these Accelerating Universe Nobel Prize themed Thanksgiving place holders (exquisitely crafted by our sister in law Cathie Garnavich.)

Final Hours before take off

04 Sunday Dec 2011

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The suits are dry-cleaned, the gowns are tailored. The preparation for this trip has felt like a veritable campaign. I had to squeeze in gown shopping between prep for my classes. A vintage Halston gown here, a blue cocktail dress there. Peter was interviewed for the student newspaper while being measured for white tie and tails. (Let’s hope the regalia waiting for him in Sweden fits.) Friends and family have all participated in a wardrobe that rivals our wedding finery. With each styling suggestion, each offer of loaned jewelry and clothes, we have felt the support and shared excitement of our friends and family.

Physics History

01 Thursday Dec 2011

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So how did we end up with tickets to the hottest event in Stockholm?

In the 1990s, Peter Garnavich was part of the High-Z Supernova Search Team which used supernova to measure the deceleration parameter. A rival team, headed by Saul Perlmutter, was also trying to measure this parameter using supernova. It was thought at the time that the Universe contained enough matter to slow the expansion of the universe, eventually leading to its collapse. At the january meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 1998, Peter, in a joint press conference with Saul Perlmutter, presented one of the team’s first papers. Both teams had found that, in fact, the universe would expand forever. The finding was front page news in the New York Times. What happened later that year is, of course, Physics history. 

In this compendium of the team’s first six papers, the table of contents reads: