For physics, it goes to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Reiss, who, in work beginning in 1998, proved the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Think about that. It's a mind-blowing concept. If all matter is following the path set by an explosion, the Big Bang, 14B years ago, it should be slowing down thanks to entropy and all those gravitational tugs. It's not. This was a seriously W-T-F moment of human understanding. Dark matter? Dark energy? Evil spirits? Almost anything is possible in a universe as strange as this one.
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