Jim Sahli								Nov. 20, 1995
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 
(Phone:  301/286-0697)
jim.sahli@ccmail.gsfc.nasa.gov


NASA SCIENTIST RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS JOHN SCOTT AWARD

RELEASE:  95-205

	A senior astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 
Greenbelt, Md., joins the company of  Madame Curie, the Wright Brothers 
and Jonas Salk,  as he is honored for his space science research .

	 Dr. John C. Mather received the prestigious John Scott Award at a 
ceremony Nov. 20, at the American Philosophical Society (APS) in 
Philadelphia.  The advisory committee that selected Mather for this honor 
had the following to say about his accomplishment upon his selection:

	"Dr. John C. Mather, a graduate of Swarthmore College and a 
scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, is recommended for his 
achievements in the field of cosmology. His measures of the spectrum of 
the cosmic microwave background radiation and the detection of minute 
temperature fluctuations in this radiation have confirmed predictions of the 
Big Bang model of the early universe.  He was the scientific leader of the 
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project." 
	
	Mather, upon learning about the award, was excited, yet wanted to 
share the honor with members of his science team.

	"I am extremely thankful for the contributions of others," Mather 
said.  "The work being recognized was made possible by the combined 
efforts of a large team of dedicated managers, scientists, engineers, 
technicians accountants, secretaries, and many other professions located 
primarily at the Goddard Space Flight Center, at six major universities, the 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and private businesses." 

	"I am pleased to be recognized personally. COBE is something I 
have been working on since graduate school.  I organized the scientific 
group that proposed the 
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COBE satellite back in 1974, when I was just out of graduate school, and 
have been 
leading that effort ever since.  

	"The COBE was designed to measure the cosmic background 
radiation from the beginning of the entire Universe, around 15 billion years 
ago.  We measured the spectrum of the radiation and showed that it fits the 
Big Bang theoretical predictions extremely well; the theory passed its 
toughest test yet," said Mather.  

	"We discovered that the radiation is not uniform, but has hot and 
cold spots that probably originated in quantum mechanical processes in the 
very hot and dense early Universe.  The cold spots are thought to be the 
dense regions that would eventually develop into galaxies and clusters of 
galaxies.  
	
	Mather went on to say that they are still analyzing the COBE data in 
a search for the light from the first galaxies themselves.  That means 
working with scientific colleagues to figure out what to do, and with 
software engineers to make it happen.  Although NASA stopped operating 
the satellite in January 1994, the researchers are still analyzing the data with 
computers and computer simulations of the early universe.

	"The timing of this award is particular nice because my wife and I 
will be celebrating our 15th anniversary on Nov. 22, and also the original 
launch of COBE was Nov. 18 (1989), just a day after I will get the award," 
added Mather.

	The award has been granted since 1834 in honor of Benjamin 
Franklin, and its recipients include Marie Curie, the Wright Brothers, 
Thomas Edison, and Guglielmo Marconi.  "It is a great honor to be 
mentioned in the same breath with these pioneers of science and 
technology," said Mather.  

	The John Scott Award is given to "the most deserving" men and 
women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the 
"comfort, welfare and happiness" of mankind.  In this century, most of the 
awards have gone to contributors to science and medicine.  Awards have 
recognized significant contributions in prevention of yellow fever and 
malaria, and in the development of penicillin and streptomycin.

	The donor, John Scott, was an Edinburgh druggist who in the early 
1800s set up a fund calling upon the "Corporation of Philadelphia entrusted 
with the management of Dr. Franklin's legacy" to bestow upon "ingenious 
men or women who make useful inventions" a cash award and a suitably 
inscribed copper medal.  Dr. Mather will receive $7,500 for his achievement, 
as well as a certificate.
	 
	When asked what first interested him  in Space Science, Dr. Mather 
had this response.

	"I always wanted to know how human beings got here, how the 
universe started, how stars and planets formed, and how life originated, ever 
since I was a small child.  I remember visiting the Museum of Natural 
History  in New York City in 1953, when I was seven years old, and Mars 
was especially close to Earth.  I saw the planetarium show and the great  
iron meteorite and thought it was wonderful," said Mather.  "My parents 
read to me  excerpts from the biographies of Galileo and Darwin when I 
was
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seven or eight, and I read the rest myself.  I was enchanted with the whole 
idea of scientific research,"
 
	Mather attended Newton (N.J.) High School  and grew up living on 
the Rutgers University Dairy Research Station near Sussex where his father 
worked.  

	Mather received a bachelor of arts degree in Physics with highest 
honors from Swarthmore College (near Philadelphia) in 1968.  He received 
his Ph.D. in Physics in 1974 from  the University of California at Berkeley.
 
	Other scientific positions, he has held include serving as the Head of 
the Infrared Astrophysics Branch at Goddard from 1988-89, and 1990-93; 
and as the Chairperson, Board of External Advisors, Center for 
Astrophysical Research in Antarctic (CARA) at Yerkes Observatory in 
Williams Bay, Wis. from 1992-1994. 

	The NASA scientist has received six non-NASA awards and honors 
since graduate school in addition to the John Scott Award.  Mather has 
published more than 50 technical articles on his research. 

	When he is not performing his scientist duties, Mather enjoys the 
following interests.
	
	"I like going to classical music concerts, especially piano, because I 
studied it for a while, and I like going to see ballet, because my wife is a 
ballet teacher. When I get a little time I like traveling and learning a little of 
each language that I meet.  I read a lot, mostly  current events and scientific 
news."

	Mather and his wife, the former Jane Hauser of New York City, live 
in Hyattsville, Md.  His father, Dr. Robert Mather, was a geneticist and his 
mother, Martha Mather, was an elementary school teacher.  They both have 
retired and are living in East Brunswick, N.J.  His sister, Janet Mather, lives 
in Chesnut Hill neighborhood in Philadelphia.

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