John C. Mather, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/","20181227193947","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1545939587"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>John C. Mather, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="The Big Bang theory proposes that the universe we know emerged from a uniformly hot and impenetrable mass of protons, electrons and radiation. But until recently, we knew very little of the first stages of the 13-billion-year process in which our cosmos took shape. In 1974, a young astrophysicist, fresh from graduate school at Berkeley, set out to fill in this gap in human knowledge. John Mather devised a proposal for a satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), to measure the microwave background radiation in space. The scheme seemed far-fetched, but Mather persuaded NASA to undertake the mission, and was hired by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to guide the project. In 1989, COBE was launched into space. Analysis of the data took many years more, but by 1992, Mather had found what he was looking for. With this data, we can draw a map of the universe as it existed roughly 389,000 years after the Big Bang, "a baby picture of the universe." Mather's discovery has been hailed as "the missing link in cosmology." The Swedish Academy praised Mather for elevating cosmology to a precision science, and honored his achievement with the Nobel Prize. Today, he leads a NASA team building the most sophisticated telescope ever devised. We can only guess what wonders it may reveal."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="John C. Mather, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">The Big Bang theory proposes that the universe we know emerged from a uniformly hot and impenetrable mass of protons, electrons and radiation. But until recently, we knew very little of the first stages of the 13-billion-year process in which our cosmos took shape. In 1974, a young astrophysicist, fresh from graduate school at Berkeley, set out to fill in this gap in human knowledge.</p> <p class="inputText">John Mather devised a proposal for a satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), to measure the microwave background radiation in space. The scheme seemed far-fetched, but Mather persuaded NASA to undertake the mission, and was hired by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to guide the project. In 1989, COBE was launched into space. Analysis of the data took many years more, but by 1992, Mather had found what he was looking for. With this data, we can draw a map of the universe as it existed roughly 389,000 years after the Big Bang, "a baby picture of the universe."</p> <p class="inputText">Mather's discovery has been hailed as "the missing link in cosmology." The Swedish Academy praised Mather for elevating cosmology to a precision science, and honored his achievement with the Nobel Prize. Today, he leads a NASA team building the most sophisticated telescope ever devised. We can only guess what wonders it may reveal.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/mather-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">The Big Bang theory proposes that the universe we know emerged from a uniformly hot and impenetrable mass of protons, electrons and radiation. But until recently, we knew very little of the first stages of the 13-billion-year process in which our cosmos took shape. In 1974, a young astrophysicist, fresh from graduate school at Berkeley, set out to fill in this gap in human knowledge.</p> <p class="inputText">John Mather devised a proposal for a satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), to measure the microwave background radiation in space. The scheme seemed far-fetched, but Mather persuaded NASA to undertake the mission, and was hired by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to guide the project. In 1989, COBE was launched into space. Analysis of the data took many years more, but by 1992, Mather had found what he was looking for. With this data, we can draw a map of the universe as it existed roughly 389,000 years after the Big Bang, "a baby picture of the universe."</p> <p class="inputText">Mather's discovery has been hailed as "the missing link in cosmology." The Swedish Academy praised Mather for elevating cosmology to a precision science, and honored his achievement with the Nobel Prize. Today, he leads a NASA team building the most sophisticated telescope ever devised. We can only guess what wonders it may reveal.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="John C. 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/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/mather-Feature-Image-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize in Physics</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-1756 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-physicist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">The life of a scientist is all about the creative process.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Dawn of the Universe</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 7, 1946 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p class="p1"><span class="s1">John C. Mather was born in Roanoke, Virginia. There were scientists and teachers on both sides of his family. Shortly after John Mather was born, the family moved to a research farm operated by Rutgers University in rural New Jersey, where his father, a research scientist with expertise in statistics and animal husbandry, conducted studies on milk production.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8046" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8046 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8046 size-full lazyload" alt="In this 1993 photo, taken at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, John Mather stands before an image representing the distribution of matter in the early universe, as revealed by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project. Mather holds a model of the COBE satellite in his hands. (漏 Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1876" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223-380x313.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223-760x625.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">In this 1993 photo, taken at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Dr. John C. Mather stands before an image representing the distribution of matter in the early universe, as revealed by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project. Mather holds a model of the COBE satellite in his hands. (Roger Ressmeyer)</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Growing up in farm country, with his father’s scientific equipment close at hand, young John Mather took an early interest in nature and science. Far from city lights, he had an excellent opportunity to study the stars with the aid of the telescopes he assembled from mail order kits. He fed his mind with books from the Sussex County bookmobile, built shortwave radio kits and designed projects for the school science fair, including a remote-controlled robot that failed to perform as hoped.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Between terms of high school he attended summer science programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation, including a summer physics program at Cornell University. He placed first in a statewide physics competition for high school students, and chose to attend Swarthmore College for its excellent physics program. He continued to excel in physics as an undergraduate and received a National Science Foundation Fellowship for graduate study. Although he initially chose Princeton University for graduate school, a summer job at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California changed his mind, and he pursued his graduate studies in the physics department of the University of California at Berkeley.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8047" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8047 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8047 size-full lazyload" alt="John Mather displays radio maps made by the COBE satellite. The satellite discovered variations in the universe's background radiation, helping to refine the Big Bang theory. (漏 Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1888" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222-380x315.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222-760x629.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Nobel Prize laureate John Mather displays radio maps made by the COBE satellite. The satellite discovered variations in the universe’s background radiation, helping to refine the Big Bang theory. (Roger Ressmeyer)</figcaption></figure><p>Extreme nearsightedness disqualified Mather for military service during the Vietnam War, and he was able to concentrate on his graduate studies, despite the turbulent atmosphere of Berkeley in the late ’60s. While looking for a topic for his doctoral thesis, he was drawn into the orbit of <span class="s2">Dr. Charles Townes</span>, a Berkeley professor who had received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics. The doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows working with Dr. Townes were exploring cosmic background radiation, a phenomenon that had only recently been discovered but which could provide a record of the earliest history of the universe. This microwave radiation, dispersed throughout space, is the cool remnant of the first light released when the universe began its expansion 13.7 billion years ago.</p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mather imagined that if he could measure variations in the temperature of this radiation from one part of the universe to another, he could trace the paths the newborn galaxies traveled from their common starting point. As his doctoral thesis project, Mather sought to devise a system for measuring this radiation, known as CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation). He and his colleagues installed their device, a far infrared spectrometer, on a mountaintop, but their spectrometer could not overcome atmospheric interference and failed to gather the data they had sought. They next attempted to launch a spectrometer in upper atmosphere with a weather balloon, but this too failed. Mather received his doctorate for the design of the system, but his exploration of cosmic origins had come to a dead end. Instead, he took a National Research Council postdoctoral position in radio astronomy with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in New York City.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8058" style="width: 2256px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8058 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8058 size-full lazyload" alt="John Mather recounts the arc of his career in a symposium discussion with the Academy student delegates and members during the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" width="2256" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2256px) 100vw, 2256px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830.jpg 2256w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830-380x256.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830-760x512.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">John Mather recounts the arc of his career in a symposium discussion with the Academy student delegates and members during the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (© Academy of Achievement)</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">In 1974, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Agency (NASA) invited the scientific community to submit proposals for satellite projects to be launched on the Scout and Delta rockets. Mather reviewed his old project, and concluded that the background radiation could be most accurately measured from outer space, where no earthly noise or heat could disturb it. With the assistance of his postdoctoral advisor, Patrick Thaddeus, and a small team of his colleagues at Goddard, Mather proposed launching a satellite to measure CMBR from outer space. Mather presented his proposal at an international conference in Amsterdam, where it was poorly received. Many who read the proposal could not imagine that such an experiment would succeed in finding anything significant, but Mather’s colleagues back at Berkeley had made progress with their balloon technology, and Mather continued to refine the proposal.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">In the fall of 1976, NASA decided a satellite mission was worth a try and began initial studies. The project was dubbed the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), and Mather was named as Study Scientist. Mather joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. By 1979, initial studies were complete and NASA was ready to begin construction of the project. Changes were underway in Mather’s personal life at this time too. In 1974, he had met Jane Hauser, and the two were married in 1980.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8064" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8064 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8064 size-full lazyload" alt="At NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., John Mather takes questions from the press after receiving word he has won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mather's studies of cosmic radiation helped determine the age of the universe and have added weight to the Big Bang theory of its origin. (漏 Larry Downing/Reuters/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1840" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730-380x307.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730-760x613.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">At NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Dr. John C. Mather takes questions from the press after receiving word he had won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mather’s studies of cosmic radiation helped determine the age of the universe and have added confirmation to the Big Bang theory of its origin. (© Larry Downing/Reuters/CORBIS)</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">For the rest of the decade, Mather led a team of over 1,000 scientists and engineers, designing and building the exquisitely calibrated instruments required for the COBE project. The project had to be re-designed for launch from the Space Shuttle when Congress cancelled further production of the Delta rocket. After the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, the project was re-designed again, and in 1989, COBE was finally launched into space, by one of the remaining Delta rockets in NASA’s inventory.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8052" style="width: 1216px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8052 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8052 size-full lazyload" alt="John C. Mather and his wife Jane arrive for the Nobel Prize dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 2006. (AP Images/Scanpix, Janerik Henriksson)" width="1216" height="2000" data-sizes="(max-width: 1216px) 100vw, 1216px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518.jpg 1216w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518-231x380.jpg 231w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518-462x760.jpg 462w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2006: John C. Mather and wife, Jane, arrive for the Nobel Prize dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden.</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">With breathtaking precision, the COBE satellite recorded the temperature of radiation released 13 billion years ago, when the universe was in its infancy. The satellite gathered its data for four years, and although it took many more years to analyze the data it collected, Mather had found what he was looking for: small temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background that fills space. The comparison of these small variations revealed trails of cooler temperature, spreading in a fanlike pattern across the warmer background of the universe, exactly the “blackbody” pattern predicted by the Big Bang theory. No other theory yet offered could explain this distribution of radiation. Mather’s discovery validates the work of Stephen Hawking and other cosmologists, and provides a rough sketch of the universe as it appeared 389,000 years after the Big Bang.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">In 1995, John Mather began work developing the most sophisticated telescope in history. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), for which Mather serves as senior project scientist, will orbit the sun in synchronization with the Earth. From there, it will detect infrared light from distant stars, emitted billions of years ago, and penetrate the dust clouds where stars are born. In 1996, Dr. Mather published a memoir of the COBE project, <i>The Very First Light: The Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe</i>.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_8062" style="width: 1563px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8062 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8062 size-full lazyload" alt="John Mather receives the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the award jointly to Mather and his fellow scientist George Smoot III "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation." (漏 BOB STRONG/Reuters/ CORBIS)" width="1563" height="2200" data-sizes="(max-width: 1563px) 100vw, 1563px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128.jpg 1563w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128-270x380.jpg 270w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128-540x760.jpg 540w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. John Mather receives the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. The Swedish Academy of Sciences made the award jointly to Mather and his fellow scientist George Smoot III “for discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.”</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Swedish Academy honored Dr. Mather’s achievement with the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is the first of NASA’s civilian scientists to receive the award. He used the prize money to endow a scholarship program, through the National Space Grant Foundation, to enable NASA and Goddard Center interns to present their research at professional conferences. In 2007, John Mather was promoted to the post of chief scientist of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, advising the agency on all its scientific programs, from Earth science to cosmology. </span></p> <figure id="attachment_32901" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-32901 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-32901 lazyload" alt="The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as it will appear in orbit. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October of 2018. JWST will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System." width="2280" height="1710" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as it will appear in orbit. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October of 2018. JWST will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our Solar System. John Mather is the senior project scientist for the Webb Telescope.</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1">In 2016, Dr. John Mather and NASA administrator Charles Bolden unveiled the James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The $8 billion Webb Telescope is a technologically ambitious project, requiring ten new technologies to make it work. The telescope’s mirror is  twenty-one feet in diameter which is three times larger than the Hubble Telescope’s mirror. The objective of the Webb Telescope is to “explore a realm of cosmic history about 150 million to one billion years after time began <span class="st" data-hveid="44" data-ved="0ahUKEwjxwtTV3MvQAhUh4oMKHc_PAa0Q4EUILDAB">—</span> known as the Reionization Epoch, when bright and violent new stars in the searing radiation from quasars were burning away a gloomy fog of hydrogen gas that prevailed at the end of the Big Bang.” One particular goal involves observing some of the most distant events and objects of the Universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies.<br></span></p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2007 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.physicist">Physicist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 7, 1946 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">The Big Bang theory proposes that the universe we know emerged from a uniformly hot and impenetrable mass of protons, electrons and radiation. But until recently, we knew very little of the first stages of the 13-billion-year process in which our cosmos took shape. In 1974, a young astrophysicist, fresh from graduate school at Berkeley, set out to fill in this gap in human knowledge.</p> <p class="inputText">John Mather devised a proposal for a satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), to measure the microwave background radiation in space. The scheme seemed far-fetched, but Mather persuaded NASA to undertake the mission, and was hired by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to guide the project. In 1989, COBE was launched into space. Analysis of the data took many years more, but by 1992, Mather had found what he was looking for. With this data, we can draw a map of the universe as it existed roughly 389,000 years after the Big Bang, “a baby picture of the universe.”</p> <p class="inputText">Mather’s discovery has been hailed as “the missing link in cosmology.” The Swedish Academy praised Mather for elevating cosmology to a precision science, and honored his achievement with the Nobel Prize. Today, he leads a NASA team building the most sophisticated telescope ever devised. We can only guess what wonders it may reveal.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/dIb-Sjdnae8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=2239&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_32_25_25.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_32_25_25.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Dawn of the Universe</h2> <div class="sans-2">Washington, D.C.</div> <div class="sans-2">October 26, 2012</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When did you first know that you wanted to pursue astrophysics and cosmology?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/eGwwWC61q0o?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_34_33_13.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_34_33_13.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">John Mather: When I was a child, I was really interested in astronomy, and it was just one of those things that was full of mystery at that time.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>I studied lenses and telescopes, and I saw the surface of the sun with a little telescope that I made with lenses in a cardboard tube.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽聽</span>So I was all enthusiastic about astronomy when I was in grade school.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>And then I learned a little bit more in high school, and I took physics courses.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>And finally, through graduate school, I was thinking I wanted to be a particle physicist, because that was the biggest mystery of that time.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Then I was looking for a thesis project, though, and I found an advisor who had this new idea to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation — the primordial heat of the universe. It had just been discovered five years before that, so it was time to go measure.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So okay. Well, I’ll try that.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So that was the beginning of my career as an astrophysicist. Most of my training is as a physicist rather than as an astronomer.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_8055" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8055 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8055 size-full lazyload" alt="At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., Dr. John Mather of NASA describes the dispersion of galaxies after the Big Bang. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., Dr. John Mather of NASA — recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics — describes the dispersion of galaxies after the Big Bang. (© Academy of Achievement)</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What did you find intriguing or challenging about this work?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">John Mather: Well, that particular project was just laboratory work. “Let’s build an apparatus to measure something.” I’ve always loved the idea of building things to measure things, so that was my perfect thing. It turned out to be very hard to do, and my career took a few turns. In particular, my thesis project didn’t work after it was launched. There’s a story there. But anyway, here I am.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s2"><b>What happened when you hit that setback? What did that teach you?</b></span></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/2aGxb875820?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_32_25_25.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_32_25_25.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">John Mather: I got to write a thesis about a project that didn’t quite work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>And I declared to myself — I thought to myself — “Well, this is way too hard for a young person.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>I’m going to get out of this field.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So I got a job offer to become a radio astronomer.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>“Okay, I’ll do that.” And I got a post-doc position at the NASA laboratory in New York City with a radio astronomer.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>By then, NASA had another idea.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>They announced an opportunity for proposals — in 1974 this was.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So I said to my advisor, “Well, you know, my thesis project failed, but it really should have been done in outer space.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So he said, “Well, we’ll call up our friends.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>These are people who know what to do with an idea like this.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>We had a meeting and created the concept for a satellite mission that would measure the cosmic microwave background radiation the way that it should be measured.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>It was a long process after that, but 15 years later we launched it and it worked that time.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So my thesis project basically lasted for 25 years.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_8063" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-8063 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-8063 lazyload" alt="In a 2006 press conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., John C. Mather shows some of the earliest data from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. (漏 NASA/Bill Ingalls/ CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1491" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900-760x497.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2006: Dr. John C. Mather shows some of the earliest data from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite.</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you learn from setbacks? We’ve become something of an “instant gratification” society, and with the whole process of science you have to have so much patience.</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">John Mather: To me, it was never a matter of patience. It was a matter of “That’s the only way to go.”</span></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nip4CD7T3CY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=64&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_27_40_19.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_27_40_19.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">The setback of the failure of that apparatus really showed me something truly important, which was: If you don’t test it, it’s not going to work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>People sometimes would say to you, “Well, why don’t you just take a risk and push the button and it will work?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>It might work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>And I think we learned that that’s cheating.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Nature knows when you’re trying to cheat.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>If you don’t build it right, it won’t work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So that turned out to be extremely important to me later, because when we were building the satellite, we knew that we didn’t have a chance to do it over, and so it darn well better work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So it gave me the heart to say, “You know, if we don’t test it, it won’t work.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>That was pretty important at a time when the project that we were doing was running out of money and time and we might not be able to test it properly.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So I finally said, “Well, you know, we’ve got to test.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>And my colleagues at NASA, the engineers, they know this.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>They know if you don’t test it, it won’t work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>They’re very determined.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>But it was really important for me to back them up and say, “Yes, we will test it.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So it did work and then it did wonderful things.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_8054" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8054 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8054 size-full lazyload" alt="Dr. John Mather presents the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement to Dr. Adam Riess, a fellow recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2012 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award.jpg 2280w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. John Mather presents the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement to Dr. Adam Riess, a fellow recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2012 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C.</figcaption></figure><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Do you ever think that an age of space exploration has come to an end? Have we given up on that kind of exploration?</b></span></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181227193947if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0oLS7NmySZU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=77&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_22_25_15.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mather-John-2012-XDCAM-Z1248002-Apple-ProRes-422.00_22_25_15.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">John Mather: Personally my experience is we are going like crazy for ambitious projects to explore the solar system, to explore the cosmos, doing everything we possibly can.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Our technology has gotten better and better and we can do these amazing things.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Our application to things at home keeps on improving too.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So as far as I can tell, we are continuing to do even more than we ever could before.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Maybe the public isn’t noticing, because their attention is on other things.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>Among other things we didn’t have any big disasters lately.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>When the Hubble telescope was launched and was a problem, then everybody knew about it, and then we fixed it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So we were in the news.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>When you do everything right, people don’t notice.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>They just say, “Oh, that’s cool.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>They must not be doing anything exciting.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>But to me, what we’re doing scientifically is as exciting as you could possibly imagine.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>I guess, perhaps you’re also talking about the manned program, which has come to a temporary end in the sense of we no longer have a space shuttle to fly.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>But we’re very close now to getting people to ride on our commercial launch vehicles that were set out as part of the plan.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>So pretty soon we should be able to do that again.<span class="Apple-converted-space">聽 </span>That’s pretty important.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What has really surprised you in your own study of the cosmos? Was there something that you never expected to find?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I was surprised by the importance of the discoveries we made with the COBE satellite. The number one was within a few weeks after launch. I showed a graph of the cosmic background spectrum to the astronomers. I got a standing ovation for a graph! And I really didn’t think I would. I thought, “Doesn’t everybody know that’s the right answer?” I knew it was the right answer because I’d seen it, but they didn’t all know.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">We had some bad measurements. We had some really bad theories. And we had some serious doubt about whether our expanding universe story is correct. So now we know that one. When we designed the project the first time, we didn’t know that we would ever be able to find what we call the cosmic anisotropy, which is to say the map of the Big Bang radiation — the heat radiation — is not uniform. There are hot and cold spots on it which are not very bright and really hard to find. We didn’t know they’d be there. There was no serious theory to tell us they would be there when we conceived the mission. When we got the data, it was fabulously important, and I didn’t know how important it would turn out to be. I just couldn’t have guessed that. Now we know that Mr. Hawking was right. It really is the most important discovery of the century — if not of all time — for scientists. At least for cosmologists. So what it meant was now we can explain our existence. Those little hot and cold spots measure the details of the early parts of the universe. They tell us about the gravitation that was there then. They tell us about the gravitation that should cause galaxies to exist today. They tell us about the cosmic dark matter and the cosmic dark energy. All of those things have their effects on those patterns of little spots. No one knew in 1974, when we conceived this mission, that any of that could be done. Now it’s practically an industry. There have been now three space satellites, besides the COBE satellite, that were launched for this purpose. One came before, two after. And it’s still an extraordinarily rich subject. So I never guessed how rich a subject it would be. More papers have been written about those spots than there were spots on the map by far. So this is huge. I just never guessed.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Those spots tell us a great deal about the past. Do they tell us anything about the future?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: They do tell us about the story of the universe, and so they do confirm the other discovery — the one that got the Nobel Prize last year — about the accelerating universe. One of the reasons they could give a prize was it’s been measured more than one way. So the spots confirm that story. Okay, so the universe is accelerating. It means that distant galaxies are going away from us faster and faster. If you wait enough billion years, not only will the stars go out, but the galaxies will go away. So if you’re the one astronomer left in the universe, it will be very lonely. You won’t see a single other thing besides your own star and your own galaxy. So that’s something that we can tell is probably coming if our story is correct, which I can’t promise.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Looking out at the universe, do you think that there are other places like Earth, or are we unique?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I feel sure that there are other places like Earth. I also feel sure that we are unique. And I feel also quite sure that we will never find signals from another civilization, just because the universe is so large and it’s so difficult to hunt through it. I feel sure there are other civilizations, but just that we can’t find them. So we sort of know these things just from the large numbers. Carl Sagan explained it all very well many years ago. I think he was right. So we’re on our own. It’s our job to preserve our civilization, expand it as far as possible, conceivably even to build a robot that can travel to another star and set down and land on a planet out there. So it’s going to have to be a pretty smart robot and it has to be pretty patient. But it’s not impossible as far as I know. It’s pretty hard for us to go there, but it’s possible to build a robot to go there. So we’re thinking.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How much of a role does the creative process play in what you do? Obviously there are physical and mathematical components that are fixed. But in terms of understanding those or putting them together in new ways, does the creative process play a role?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: It seems to me that the life of a scientist is all about the creative process. People think, “Scientists are so smart, they must know a lot.” That’s really not how it feels to be a scientist. How it feels to be me, and I think to my fellow scientists, is we’re always working on the part that we don’t understand yet: the equipment that doesn’t work right, the theory that doesn’t function right, the algebraic mistakes that we haven’t found yet, the computer program that doesn’t work right yet. We spend relatively little of our time thinking about the stuff we already know. It’s all about the creative process for understanding what we don’t know. So we’re on this huge quest. Personally, a lot of my creative moments come from conversations with other people. Someone says, “Well, I could do this…” and I say, “Well in that case, why don’t we try that?” So at least two major concepts for observatories have come from concepts that I’ve been discussing with friends. So that’s part of how creativity occurs, is somebody offers you a problem and you say, “I could solve that,” or vice versa — challenge other people to solve a problem.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Are there other disciplines, interests or hobbies that nourish your scientific creativity?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I read a lot of things outside my area of science. I’m so excited to read about what the biologists are finding these days. It’s such an enormously productive subject. I love reading <i>Popular Science</i> and <i>Scientific American</i>, and magazines that tell me what other scientists are doing, in a way where I don’t have to go into the detail and I get the inspiration of it. Those are things I like to pursue. I like to keep up with current events and understand the chaos of the world as well. Partly, I’m just curious. Partly, I’d like to have some influence, if I could understand what to do.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Were you always curious? Were you curious as a child?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: So I’m told. 聽</span><span class="s1">I’m told I was curious enough to get all the doorknobs off the house when I was three. So I figured my parents knew something was going to happen. I do remember being curious as a child, being interested in everything that I could understand, and I read a lot of books. I had a very quiet childhood, in the sense of growing up in the country on a research farm for Rutgers University. After a while, the county library started sending around a library bookmobile. So a truck full of books came every couple of weeks, and I would get everything I could about science. So it was an interesting time to be a child, and to read about things, because that was also right around Sputnik time. So we go from, “Well, it’s cool to be a kid interested in science,” to being, “Gosh, you could save the country when you grow up!” So that was a very exciting time too. It wasn’t only just curiosity, but I loved the curiosity part.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was there anyone in particular who inspired you when you were young or fostered your interest in this direction?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think my parents had more to do with it than most people. They made sure I had opportunity to do things. And when I wanted to accomplish something, they would usually help a little bit. Now they didn’t have that great of resources either, where we were in the country. You couldn’t just go down to the shop and buy a lens. But when I wanted something, they usually figured out how to get something for me. They made sure I got off the farm to go away for summer camps in science a couple of times. That was cool. And they found ways to get me off to summer science programs in high school too, twice. So these were enough of an adventure outside my home district to find out, “Yeah, I have other friends like myself. I’m also pretty good at what I do.” So that was tremendously important actually. You have to discover you can accomplish what you want to accomplish to give yourself the courage to continue, because otherwise you could just get frustrated and give up. There were times that things were pretty hard to do, and I was thinking, “How is this going to go?” But I would remember, “Yeah, I’ve done hard things before. Maybe I can actually do this.” Some people have to discover their courage in that way.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Were you thought of as a gifted child, or as more of a curious one?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I don’t know how people felt about me. I actually got to see my high school math and physics teachers again a few years ago, and they sort of knew that I was a special person, but they didn’t let on while I was there. They didn’t treat me as though I were super-special. They were just sort of, “Let John do what he wants.” My parents told me, “When you go to college, you’ll find out there are other people just as smart as you. You’re going to have to work hard.” That was their advice. It was true.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How would you explain — to someone who knows nothing about your field — what makes it so exciting to you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: To me, the excitement is that we have a chance to really understand our human history. I think that’s exciting. Other people seem to also, although they concentrate on other things like genealogy and human history. I like to reach back as far as possible, because there are so many discoveries currently being made about the nature of the universe, how the physical universe has been expanding all these many billions of years, and how stars and galaxies are formed from that. We’re even beginning to learn how the Earth comes to be, how common are planets around other stars. To me, this is a fascinating story, and I think the public is interested too. So it’s not just because I’m interested. It’s because I can tell other people care about this also. There are even a lot of people who care because they already disagree with the story, but they care. So I take that as a tremendous vote of how important it is to people.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you see as the next great challenge or frontier in cosmology?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think the thing that I’m working on is one of the great frontiers. It’s the new telescope — it’s called the James Webb Space Telescope — which will be able to observe things farther back in time than Hubble can see, and to see inside dust clouds where stars are being born today. There’s a new star being born more or less once a year in our Milky Way. It would be pretty cool to watch that happen, because maybe we’d understand how the sun was made. We’re finding more and more planets around other stars, so we hope to learn something about whether ours is in fact unique, like we were speculating before. So to me, this is a fascinating set of things to be working on. So it’s one of the — this is an observational frontier. We’re building a new tool. And in truth we don’t really know what they’re going to find. One of the great confident hopes that we have is that there will be a big surprise there — that we will not predict everything. That seems to be the nature of astronomy. We almost never predict what we’re going to see and get it right. There were so many wonderful predictions made before the Hubble telescope was launched and so many of them were wrong, it was great. And basically almost none of the predictions that people made about exoplanets — the planets around other stars — almost none of those were right. So it’s been almost entirely determined by observing. So it’s full of surprises. And my perspective on that is getting to be, “Well, if you can imagine it, it probably happens somewhere.” So we are limited by our imagination and we should expect surprises.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How do you see back in time?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: We see back in time really easy. I see you as you were about four nanoseconds ago. Light travels fast, but its speed is not infinite. So if we look at something that’s really far away, we see it as it was. Very simple. So if you see the middle of our own galaxy, it’s about 25,000 years ago that it had to send the light to us. If you look at something like the Andromeda Nebula, several million years ago as it was. If you look at the farthest things you can see, it’s 13 billion years. You’re looking back in time already, and that’s almost all that there is –13.75 is the estimated age of the universe. By the way, the cosmic microwaves that we measure, they show the universe as it was when it was only about 400,000 years old. We have its baby picture, and we’d like to know, “How did that work? How did it grow up?”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What was the impetus behind coming up with an idea like the Big Bang? What’s the thought process that goes into that? Is there a decisive moment when an idea like that comes into focus, or is it more of a cumulative process?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think the recognition of the expanding universe was somewhat sudden. On the other hand, the evidence was building up over time and — I expect — in the early part of the 20th Century. First it was necessary to find out what galaxies are. And they found the distant galaxies actually have stars in them. Then the next question was, “Are they moving?” And they seem mostly to be moving away. Then the next question is, “How far away are they?” And people started to get measures and especially Edwin Hubble got measurements of this. Then in 1929 was the big “Aha!” moment, because he made a graph, and he showed about 20 or 30 galaxies, and he showed that there’s this trend that the farther away they are, the faster they’re going. And it’s a pretty good trend. So, okay. Now maybe this is true. Now I see the universe is expanding. So this was the sort of sudden moment. People had predicted it. Two theorists had predicted it, and Einstein said it can’t be right. But then it was right, so that was a big “Aha!” moment for science, but it was something that developed over time.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">By the way, we still call it the Big Bang, but we really shouldn’t. We should be calling it the expanding universe. And the reason that I say that, is that people immediately picture a little hand grenade going off when you say a Big Bang, and what we actually mean is the universe is expanding. We did not see a bang. It did not have a start that we can see. We know that the clock hasn’t ticked very long. It’s ticked for 13.7 billion years. But we do not see the moment before that. We do not see that event. We see the universe as it was when it was young. We don’t see it being born. That’s a pretty big thing we have to think about, but so far all we have in science is the process for one thing turning into another. We don’t have anything that says, “There was nothing, and then there was something.” It’s curious, because almost all of the public thinks we mean something else. But we don’t. We mean we see the expanding universe, and we trace its history back. We do not see that it comes into existence.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Can we predict the lifespan of our sun?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: We can predict the lifespan of our sun. It’s been going for four-and-a-half billion years about, and it’s got another billion or so before it’s too bright for us to live here. When it’s another five billion –roughly — from now, it will be expanding to the size of the Earth’s orbit roughly, and it will be turning into what we call a “red giant star.” After 7.6 billion or so, that’s over too and it will shrink down to become a white dwarf star. So that means its nuclear interior fuel is used up. It will get fainter and cooler over many billions of years. So that’s probably its life cycle. So maybe we get some space travel before that.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Then what happens to our solar system?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: Our solar system will continue orbiting around our galaxy for a few billion years. But it’s an interesting question, because in about two billion years — maybe three or four, but soon anyway in cosmic terms — the Andromeda Nebula is coming at us. It’s that big beautiful thing you can see with binoculars in the autumn sky, over in the east. So it’s coming towards us. When galaxies collide, the parts go flying every which way. Stars mostly do not collide with each other. The planets are not likely to be ripped away from the sun. But the sun could be flung off into intergalactic space. As I like to say, we could get voted off the island. Now it will be pretty spectacular to be there as a witness, because cosmic collisions will occur, and the black holes that are at the middles of the galaxies — they will probably have a merger event — will be spectacular. So something amazing will happen. We can only tell this is likely because we measure the velocities. The Andromeda Nebula is coming towards us. We see what happens when other galaxies collide, because we can take their pictures out there. We even make movies of what it should be like, because we can simulate everything in computers now. So it’s spectacular even just to watch the movie.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Did ancient civilizations — like Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome, which didn’t have the benefit of all the technology, and some of the math and the science — did they get things right about our cosmos that surprise you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: Some of the Ancient Greeks were astonishingly thoughtful. So some of them knew the size of the Earth. Some of them knew the distance to the moon. There’s a small mechanism that was made, perhaps by Archimedes and his shop, which would calculate the motions of the planets as you would see them from here. It was a gearbox, like a giant clock. Probably some rich person ordered it. So they knew a vast amount about how things actually work. I don’t know whether any of them guessed that Earth was not the middle. There are certainly people that understood the process of change. There were people that had the idea of atoms, as you know, as the word is a Greek word anyway. Some people really got it pretty good all along, considering how little they had to work with. But then it’s a little bit of a mystery to me how come such things slowed down as much as they did between, say, the beginning of the Roman Empire and its decay. Then some science went into hibernation, and some was probably being done and was being lost. So then we have this amazing flowering all over again in the late 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, where suddenly science takes off. And who knows why that was? But it did.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What so far has been the most interesting or exciting moment in your career?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think, in a way, the most exciting moment is seeing the rocket go up that carried the COBE satellite into space, because, you know, we’d worked for 15 years to make that happen. And you realize, as you’re watching it, that there’s nothing you can do if there’s a fault there in the rocket. So you just say, “Well, hmm, I hope that works.” Of course, it’s four or five o’clock in the morning. You’re standing out in the middle of a field on the California coast and thinking about your future and what happens. So that’s exciting, and it’s also — when it works, of course — it’s a bit of an anticlimax. “Now what do I do?” Well, you know what you have to do. You have to head home and get ready to operate the observatory. But that was a pretty exciting moment, I have to say.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Once you’ve answered one question that’s puzzled you, where does the next question come from?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: In a way, the questions that scientists ask are community products. People are always asking questions, and most often we can’t work on them yet. But almost none of the questions that I’ve worked on were my idea. Almost all of them are just sitting there as challenges for all of us to think about. So what’s more likely is that scientists may have a personal idea about what to do about that. But the big questions have been sitting there a long time.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How would you describe your contribution to your field? What do you think you’ve brought to it that’s unique?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: The particular idea of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite was one of my ideas. But is it really my idea? It’s hard to tell. Like I say, these things are community property almost. I happen to be the person who said, “My thesis didn’t work. We should have done it in outer space.” But in truth I wasn’t the first person to think that sort of thought. I remember a review committee came around to review my thesis project when I was at Berkeley. It was a NASA committee, and they said, “Why aren’t you doing this in outer space?” So it wasn’t really my idea alone. I just was the one that stood up and said, “Yeah, maybe we should try that.” So that’s an interesting thing because — so the ideas themselves are not so unusual. What I think was as important though, was I had somehow the ability and the team to work with to continue through until it worked, and that’s pretty special. And you can’t claim responsibility for that either. You go into an environment at NASA where there are many, many people that it takes to operate this system. In the back of our book about the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite are the names of about 1500 people. So they all worked on it. Many of them were completely essential, where if they hadn’t done what they did, it wouldn’t have worked.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How do you approach solving problems? Especially when you’re working with such large groups?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: Well, it’s pretty important to parse the problem out into parts if you can.聽</span><span class="s1">If you want to, say, do you design a giant telescope? You have to describe what the scientific purpose is, what you want it to accomplish. Then you have to set up a process with an engineering team to say, “Let’s translate these wishes into drawings, concepts.” This is something called systems engineering. It’s a specialty in engineering to be able to translate the wish into the parts. So that’s one thing to do. Then another thing is, if you’re working on something — which I often did personally during the COBE project — say you’re sitting there with a problem that has to be solved, and you’re working with engineers to solve the problem. It’s been my faith that I’m not usually the one that knows the answer. Somebody sitting in the corner not saying anything could be the one that knows the answer to this one, and has been waiting for you to call on him or her to say so. So a lot of it is a group process management to encourage the people who could solve the problem to speak up. So it’s saying basically it’s a social endeavor. Science and engineering together are both. And very rare for a single person to do it alone.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you know now about achievement that you didn’t know when you were younger?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think when I was younger, I just didn’t know what I could accomplish. I didn’t start out with a plan to do anything particular. Most of my life was not planned in advance. I didn’t know where I was going to go. Mostly, I would say, my life strategy has been to respond to opportunity. And then when somebody gives you a responsibility, then stick to it. So it’s worked out. I didn’t have a plan when I left Berkeley to build this COBE satellite. In fact, I was going to do something else, because I thought it was too hard. But somebody said, “Well, write a proposal.” I thought, “Well, it’s pretty unlikely to be chosen, but it might be and that would be glorious.” So then when we got a chance to do it, of course I said yes. Then when it turned out to be a lot harder than people thought, well, okay, I’ll stay with it anyway. So I don’t give up. I think that’s part of the achievement. I think that’s what we’ve heard from a lot of the other speakers at this event as well today — that you just don’t give up. When something is hard, you just get more resources and keep on going.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you hope will be one of the big achievements of the next quarter century?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: I think astronomy will make huge progress. Biology is closer and closer to understanding detailed molecular approaches to managing diseases. I think that some of the big diseases of today will be mastered in some way. I think artificial intelligence will come along to be much more important than it is today. I think IBM’s demonstration of their Watson Program on TV was pretty spectacular. And I know they’re working on making it useful to people. So I think we’re going to see incredible growth of artificial intelligence and distributed computer systems to where they’re actually useful and it’s not just, “I’d like to look up something cool on Google.” I think maybe someday the computer will actually be able to help us think. It’s not impossible. It’s pretty complicated. As you know, it’s been in our future for a long time and it’s turned out to be much harder than the original proponents thought. But it’s not impossible, as far as I can tell. And I wouldn’t be too surprised if, say, in 50 years I could come in — if I’m still alive — and say to the computer, “Well, it’s time to go to Mars.” And the computer will say, “Okay, I know what to do.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What can artificial intelligence do that the human mind can’t?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: It’s hard to tell what it could possibly do. What we know already is that it can help us represent our thoughts and it can help us remember what we thought before.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">One thing we don’t have as far as I know in engineering is a kind of archive, or a library of all the successful things we’ve ever done. If somebody says, “I need to have a ball that spins in space, so how do I lubricate it?” you would think that by now a computer could say, “I know how to do that because it’s been done before,” and it would show you drawings. As far as I know, it’s not available. But why couldn’t it be? So if we need to send people to Mars, we need something that’s at least that helpful, otherwise it’s just too hard. So I think that’s a way in which even elementary artificial intelligence could be extremely helpful to us. Another application would be — if we have enough of it, we can send it to Mars by itself. “Okay, Mars Rover, drive around by yourself and find something interesting.” As compared to waiting for us to send a command every day to please go another few feet. So there’s a huge amount that’s possible, with even a little bit of improvement, of autonomy for our remote roboting sensors. So I think there’s a lot of possibility there. It’s pretty hard to do, otherwise we would have done it. But I think it’s worth doing, and will have tremendous effects on practically everything else we do too.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What role does life experience play in creativity and problem solving?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: What role? It seems to me life experience gives you some range of things to remember and connect. Part of our intelligence is connecting the dots, seeing the patterns that are there or could be there. It’s also that we gradually develop a point of view that says, “Creativity is something we know how to do and it’s worth doing and we’re going to try.” I’ve gotten more and more interested in thinking of new ways to do space missions, so that’s part of where my creativity goes. I enjoy having conversations with people about, “What if we try this?” Some of it’s intentional. I would say, “I’m looking for a problem to solve. Let’s go solve something.” That drives creativity. That’s part of it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you think matters most in life?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: What matters most in life? That’s very personal, isn’t it? What matters most is different for each person. For me, I think, it matters a lot to know that I have done what I can for my fellow human beings, that I’ve behaved with integrity, that the scientific discoveries that I claim are true are actually correct. Because if they are or not is going to be found out sometime. So I would like to be known as the person who did find it out and it was right. That’s sort of a really basic part of our scientific creed that we have to get it right and help people tell. So we publish; that’s part of what we do. I do want to be remembered also for what good I can do with other people — for other people. Trying to help the next generation get started in doing things, support kids who want to grow up to become scientists and engineers. Of course, that’s not the only subject we need to be working on, but that’s something I know we need to work on. I also think people need to cultivate an attitude of appreciation. I’d like to be known as a person who did recognize and appreciate the contributions of his friends and family — basically expressing love where it belongs. That’s some of what I’m thinking of. I think that’s a very deep question though.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What would you say to encourage somebody who is interested in the sciences today? What should they do to prepare themselves to pursue a scientific career?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: That’s a huge question. Number one: be curious. Number two: be open to opportunity. Three: help cause that opportunity to occur. If somebody knows that you want to be a scientist, they maybe wish to help you. A lot of people grow up in areas where it’s not easy to get started. But if you’re inspired, maybe you can make something happen. You have to somehow find the way to cause your dreams to come true. I think this is true across all areas of growing up. You need to find a way to cause your dreams to come true. Sometimes it’s a matter of figuring out what they are, or noticing what they are, and sometimes it’s a matter of reaching out to other people to say, “I’ve got this great idea. Can you help me do this?” Sometimes it’s a crazy idea. “Maybe you should tell me that it’s crazy and I should stop.” In any case, we need to encourage the communication and the resourcefulness of young people. And older people. We’re all creative at all ages. Maybe we should all consider what we can do to realize those dreams.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I’d say one of the important things to know is it’s not just about thinking of stuff and doing stuff, it’s also communicating stuff. If you want to do what you want to do, you have to explain it to people well so they will support it. Science is almost never done just because it’s cool. It’s done because somebody really wants to help you find out. So you have to ask for a company to sponsor your work, or your family to sponsor your work, or your government to sponsor your work. One way or another you’re always persuading somebody of something’s importance. So think about persuasion. Study English and writing, and master the art of explaining things. So if your mom can understand why you’re excited about what you do, maybe the funding agency will also. So my advice there is to give a lot of thought to good writing and good communicating. Practice it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Do we value science enough in this country? Or are we endangering science?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: In our country we value science immensely, and we once in a while pretend that we don’t. Part of the pretense is that certain forces exist, because if we actually took action based on the science then somebody would lose some money. An example is pretty clear about the tobacco industry. Science proved a long time ago that people got cancer from smoking, and other bad things would happen to us too. Well, certain forces said, “We don’t want you to tell anyone that, so we’ll pretend that science doesn’t matter. We’ll pretend you didn’t find that out.” Similar forces are at work in every other area that really matters in life. If there’s money involved, somebody will say, “I don’t want you to regulate me. I think I’ll pretend your science isn’t right.” So we shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, to me it means that science is even more important than people let on. It’s one of those curious thing that — it’s the two sides of a coin. If it’s really important and we don’t want to pay attention, we’ll pretend it isn’t true. But it doesn’t make anything change. Nature doesn’t care what we think. Nature does what nature does, and doesn’t particularly respond to pretending that it’s not there. So we’ve got huge challenges on governing the entire world’s future, about energy, climate, water supply, practically everything that you can name about the global world economy, the global world health. Everything depends on science and engineering in tremendously deep ways. So all we can do is really work on it, and keep on going, and provide the information to the people who have to make decisions. Scientists don’t make decisions for the world, other people do. So we try to do our best to give the right information.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Does winning the Nobel Prize change your life?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: Yes, it does. It gives tremendous opportunity for communication that you didn’t always have, or maybe you didn’t know you had. But aside from that, my life is about the same as before. I continue to have the same job title, and continue to talk to the public, only just more so. So the change for me has been somewhat gradual. I was a little afraid of it when I first heard the call. Yeah, your life is changed now. But it’s as much like it was before as I can make it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Dr. Mather, thank you for giving us this interview.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">John Mather: Well, thank <i>you</i>. That was a lovely interview. I enjoyed doing that.</span></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">John C. Mather, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>21 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2520593080725" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393728.jpg" data-image-caption="October 3, 2006: John Mather answers questions after receiving word he won the 2006 Nobel Prize at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Americans John Mather and George Smoot won the 2006 Nobel prize for physics for work on cosmic radiation that helped pinpoint the age of the universe and added weight to the Big Bang theory of its birth. (Image by 漏 LARRY DOWNING/Reuters/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Mather answers questions after receiving word he won 2006 Nobel Prize at NASA Headquarters in Washington" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393728-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393728-607x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.80657894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730.jpg" data-image-caption="At NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., John Mather takes questions from the press after receiving word he has won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mather's studies of cosmic radiation helped determine the age of the universe and have added weight to the Big Bang theory of its origin. (漏 Larry Downing/Reuters/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Mather answers questions after receiving word he won 2006 Nobel Prize at NASA Headquarters in Washington" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730-380x307.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17393730-760x613.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900.jpg" data-image-caption="In a 2006 press conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., John C. Mather shows some of the earliest data from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. (漏 NASA/Bill Ingalls/ CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17447900-760x497.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4074074074074" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128.jpg" data-image-caption="John Mather receives the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the award jointly to Mather and his fellow scientist George Smoot III "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation." (漏 BOB STRONG/Reuters/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128-270x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-42-17671128-540x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69210526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159968main_20061003_mather_02.jpg" data-image-caption="Left to right: Dr. Edward Weiler, Director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Shana Dale, NASA Deputy Administrator, congratulate NASA scientist Dr. John C. Mather. Dr. Mather was the co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics on October 3, 2006. (Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-159968main_20061003_mather_02" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159968main_20061003_mather_02-380x263.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159968main_20061003_mather_02-760x526.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159971main_20061003_mather_03.jpg" data-image-caption="NASA scientist Dr. John C. Mather is photographed during a press conference held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dr. Mather was a co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics on October 3, 2006. (Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-159971main_20061003_mather_03" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159971main_20061003_mather_03-380x216.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159971main_20061003_mather_03-760x432.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5637860082305" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159974main_20061003_mather_04.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. John C. Mather answers questions during a press conference held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. after winning the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics on October 3, 2006. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159974main_20061003_mather_04-243x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-159974main_20061003_mather_04-486x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830.jpg" data-image-caption="John Mather recounts the arc of his career in a symposium discussion with the Academy student delegates and members during the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-academy_0830" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830-380x256.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0830-760x512.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_845_mather.jpg" data-image-caption="During the 2012 International Achievement Summit, Dr. John Mather describes the COBE satellite to the Academy of Achievement at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-Academy_845_mather" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_845_mather-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_845_mather-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.64605263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_849.jpg" data-image-caption="During the 2012 International Achievement Summit, Dr. John Mather describes the COBE satellite to the Academy of Achievement at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_849-380x245.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_849-760x491.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850.jpg" data-image-caption="At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., Dr. John Mather of NASA describes the dispersion of galaxies after the Big Bang. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_0850-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. John Mather presents the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement to Dr. Adam Riess, a fellow recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2012 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-Academy_1600_riess-award-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70789473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_1643.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. John Mather is presented with the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement by Ralph Nader at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (漏 Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-academy_1643" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_1643-380x269.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-academy_1643-760x538.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.6450216450216" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518.jpg" data-image-caption="John C. Mather and his wife, Jane, arrive for the Nobel Prize dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 2006. (AP Images/Scanpix, Janerik Henriksson)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518-231x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP061211020518-462x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68421052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP0610030115797.jpg" data-image-caption="Nobel Prize for Physics winner John Mather takes part in a news conference at NASA Headquarters on October 3, 2006 in Washington, D.C. Mather is NASA's first civil service scientist to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)" data-image-copyright="John Mather" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP0610030115797-380x260.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AP0610030115797-760x520.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4126394052045" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather.jpg" data-image-caption="April 9, 2007: Dr. John C. Mather, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Dr. Mather was a co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics. (Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)" data-image-copyright="wordpress-John-Mather" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather-269x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather-538x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather-prepares-for-his-tweet-chat-Credit-NASA-Chris-Gunn.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. John Mather prepares for a Twitter chat. (NASA/Chris Gunn)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather-prepares-for-his-tweet-chat-Credit-NASA-Chris-Gunn-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-John-Mather-prepares-for-his-tweet-chat-Credit-NASA-Chris-Gunn-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-mather-hires.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. John C. Mather" data-image-copyright="wordpress-mather-hires" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-mather-hires-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-mather-hires-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.82763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222.jpg" data-image-caption="John Mather displays radio maps made by the COBE satellite. The satellite discovered variations in the universe's background radiation, helping to refine the Big Bang theory. (漏 Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222-380x315.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005222-760x629.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.82236842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223.jpg" data-image-caption="In this 1993 photo, taken at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, John Mather stands before an image representing the distribution of matter in the early universe, as revealed by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project. Mather holds a model of the COBE satellite in his hands. (漏 Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Galactic Astronomer" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223-380x313.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-RR005223-760x625.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2.jpg" data-image-caption="The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as it will appear in orbit. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October of 2018. JWST will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System." data-image-copyright="wp-614445main_013526_white2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WP-614445main_013526_white2-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on November 28, 2016</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration curious help-mankind teach-others " data-year-inducted="1996" data-achiever-name="Molina"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-013a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-013a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Mario J. 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Seaborg, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Discoverer of Plutonium</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1972</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration illness-or-disability ambitious resourceful join-the-military pioneer " data-year-inducted="1981" data-achiever-name="Shepard"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/shepard-013a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/shepard-013a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">First American in Space</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1981</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration small-town-rural-upbringing analytical curious spiritual-religious explore-nature teach-others pioneer " data-year-inducted="1969" data-achiever-name="Townes"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/townes-013a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/townes-013a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Inventor of the Maser and Laser</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1969</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> </div> </article> <div class="modal image-modal fade" id="imageModal" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="imageModal" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="close-container"> <div class="close icon-icon_x" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close"></div> </div> <div class="modal-dialog" role="document"> <div class="modal-content"> <div class="modal-body"> <figure class="image-modal__container"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <img class="image-modal__image" src="/web/20181227193947im_/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/" alt=""/>  <figcaption class="p-t-2 container"> <div class="image-modal__caption sans-2 text-white"></div>  </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> </div> </div> <footer class="content-info main-footer bg-black"> <div class="container"> <div class="find-achiever" id="find-achiever-list"> <div class="form-group"> <input id="find-achiever-input" class="search js-focus" placeholder="Search for an achiever"/> <i class="icon-icon_chevron-down"></i> </div> <ul class="find-achiever-list list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. 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Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Gl眉ck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Hel煤</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leslie H. Wexner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oprah-winfrey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oprah Winfrey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tom Wolfe</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Wooden</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bob-woodward/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bob Woodward</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shinya-yamanaka-m-d-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-chuck-yeager/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Chuck Yeager, USAF</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181227193947/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-young/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew J. 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