George Smoot was born on February 20, 1945 in Yukon, Florida. He spent most of his early life moving because of his father's teaching job. After focusing his talents on academia in high school, Smoot entered MIT where he finally settled on a double major in physics and mathematics. He was awarded a B.S. and later Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1970 for his continuing research of the decay of subatomic particles. Soon after he worked at Berkeley on a major NASA funded project called HAPPE whose purpose was to determine the origin of the universe and hopefully confirm the theory of the big bang. One year later he became the project's team leader and spent time in various areas of the United States including Aberdeen, South Dakota. His primary duties as team leader were to study the sky for evidence of antimatter. The methods employed by Smoot and his team included: sending experimental balloons to study the atmosphere, using U-2 spy planes to detect microwave radiation, and using NASA satellites to catalog and measure the various radiation sources of the cosmos. Though claimed to be abundant, the first balloon flight found no evidence of antimatter. Smoot and his team made a huge discovery (see below) that changed astronomers views of the universe with a U-2 flight in both hemispheres. In 1974, Smoot headed a project called COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) whose purpose was to seek out and examine evidence of the universe's origin. Due to several delays, the satellite with the sensitive equipment was not launched until November of 1989. The data from COBE helped to reinforce the big bang theory and point out the appearance of overlaps in the universe. This evidence has been included in Smoot's book Wrinkles in Time. George Smoot currently resides in Berkeley, California and is still working on the COBE project with the hope of providing more clarity on the origins of the universe as well as his findings from the early 1990s.

In 1976, using U-2 data, Smoot discovered that the universe is not rotating but expanding in all directions at a uniform rate. In addition, the data indicated that the Milky Way galaxy exhibited a dipole effect in the opposite direction of the galaxy's rotation. This implies that our galaxy is moving at a velocity greater than one million miles per hour relative to the remainder of the universe. This discovery changed the older, outdated views of astronomers on the basic mechanics of our galaxy with respect to the universe. This confirms that the original thought that after the big bang, matter was not distributed equally throughout the universe. The 1991 COBE data proved that there exists a quadrupole effect in our galaxy and apparent wrinkles in the background radiation temperature in space. These discoveries are directly related to the modern use of relativity. Today's scientists use relativity to predict and to confirm the origin of the universe, what direction it and we are going and what characteristics it has (for example, the existence of black holes). Smoot's discoveries have made the universe a clearer yet more complicated place.

Professor George Smoot is a man who has already made a significant contribution to the course of scientific research and to the world with his research on the origin of the universe. He has been hailed by colleagues such as Stephen Hawking as making one of the most important discoveries of all time with respect to understanding how our galaxy and the universe are functioning around us.