Nobel intentions behind friendly bet A friendly wager between two PhD students led one to winning a bottle of port - and the loser a Nobel prize. In the 1990s Brian Schmidt bet former Harvard friend Sean Carroll the density of the universe would never be discovered. In 2011, Professor Schmidt won a Nobel prize for physics for helping figure out how to measure the density of the universe. His friend won a bottle of Graham's 1985 vintage port. Now Professor Schmidt is flying Professor Carroll from the US to Australia following a bet that the Higgs boson particle would never be found. Professor Carroll will deliver a Thursday night lecture at the University of Sydney on the discovery of the Higgs boson.