12 Oct Security follies, Nobel laureate division

When astrophysicist Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize for co-discovering dark energy—the mysterious factor that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate—his grandmother wanted to see the medal that came with the prize. So he took it with him on his next trip to Fargo, ND, where she lives.

The trip was uneventful, “until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the x-ray machine,” Schmidt told Scientific American editor Clara Moskowitz. “I could see they were puzzled. It was in my laptop bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the x-rays—it’s completely black [on the x-ray image]. And they had never seen anything completely black.”

Homeland Security:  Sir, there’s something in your bag.
BS:  Yes, I think it’s this box.
HS:  What’s in the box?
BS:  A large gold medal
[At this point, the agents opened the box.]
HS:  What’s it made out of?
BS:  Gold.
HS:  Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?
BS:  The King of Sweden.
HS:  Why did he give this to you?
BS:  Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.

With this, Schmidt reports, the Homeland Security agents began to lose their patience. After he explained it was a Nobel Prize, they had one other question:

‘Why were you in Fargo?’”