Adam Riess is a distinguished professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University and an astronomer at the Space Tele- scope Science Institute. In 2011, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Brian Schmidt and Saul Perlmutter “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.”  The work— done by a team—was recognized almost immediately (in Nobel years, at least), making Adam one of the youngest winners ever of the physics prize at age 41.

Though we are contemporaries, I consider Adam Riess a role model. His relentless pursuit of topics of great meaning is inspirational. In 2005, he and I competed in a worldwide competition to determine who is a worthy successor to the great physicist Charles Townsend, winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics. I won first prize for my concept for the BICEP experiment—spoiler alert: I did not succeed in replicating Charlie Townsend’s renown—and third place went to Adam Riess. On the day he won the Nobel Prize, my brother Kevin said, “Brian, you won the battle, but he won the war”—something only a big brother would say. 

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