Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Questioned by TSA

The Transportation Security Administration stopped Nobel Prize laureate Brian Schmidt at Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota, on his way back to Austria last week.

Schmidt, an astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize in 2011, was asked at Hector International if he was given an item from someone to carry on board the aircraft. Schmidt admitted that the King of Sweden had given him something.

After the TSA agents noticed the dark item in his carry-on bag through the airport scanner, Schmidt claimed that there was a large gold medal inside.  After being asked why the King of Sweden had given him the gold medal, Schmidt told TSA agents that it was because he had “helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.”

Schmidt later explained to the agents that he had been in Fargo to visit his grandmother.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)