What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security

I thought I had blogged this already. Astrophysicist Brian Schmidt, who won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize for co-discovering dark energy—the mysterious element of the universe that is causing the expansion of spacetime to speed up describes What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security "Among the many changes the Nobel Prize brought to Schmidt’s life: travel hassles. Here’s what he said it’s like to carry a Nobel medal aboard an airplane:"

They’re like, ‘Sir, there’s something in your bag.’

I said, ‘Yes, I think it’s this box.’

They said, ‘What’s in the box?’

I said, ‘a large gold medal,’ as one does.

So they opened it up and they said, ‘What’s it made out of?’

I said, ‘gold.’

And they’re like, ‘Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?’

‘The King of Sweden.’

‘Why did he give this to you?’

‘Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.’

At which point, they were beginning to lose their sense of humor. I explained to them it was a Nobel Prize, and their main question was, ‘Why were you in Fargo?’”

Apparently they didn't think it was as dangerous as a belt buckle.