From our point of view, the most exciting thing would be if we discovered something really fundamental in our understanding was just off a bit - and that now we have a chance to revisit it.

You want your mind to be boggled. That is a pleasure in and of itself. And it's more a pleasure if it's boggled by something that you can then demonstrate is really, really true.

It seemed like my favourite kind of job - a wonderful chance to ask something absolutely fundamental: the fate of the Universe and whether the Universe was infinite or not.

It's an unusual opportunity, a chance for so many people to share in the excitement and the fun of the fact that we may be on to hints as to what the Universe is made out of. I guess the whole point of a prize like this is to be able to get that out into the community.

So it's possible that someday, by understanding a little bit more about how the world works, it will come back to help us in some other way that will be surprising.

If you ask almost any of them, 'Do you stand behind your theory? Is this the answer?' I think almost everyone would say, 'No, no, no. I'm just trying to expand the range of possibilities.' We really don't know what's going on.

You might expect gravity would slow it down, but it's just expanding faster and faster.

We have a remarkably complete picture in many ways - and it could be that we're not accounting for something that's almost three-quarters of the entire universe.

I am delighted, excited, and deeply honored.

Astronomers ought to be able to ask fundamental questions without accelerators.