Announcement of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess, presented by Professor Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on 4 October 2011.

Detailed information about the Nobel Laureates’ work was presented by Professor Börje Johansson and Professor Olga Botner.

Following the announcement, Professor Olga Botner described to freelance journalist Joanna Rose why the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe was like ‘applying the brakes on a car’. She also explained how one sees this acceleration, the size of the acceleration and what this means for the fate of the universe.