in the theory of cosmic structure formation in the 1970s. Long before it was considered a serious, quantitative branch of physics, Peebles was studying physical cosmology and has done much to establish its respectability. Peebles said, "It was not a single step, some critical discovery that suddenly made cosmology relevant but the field gradually emerged through a number of experimental observations. Clearly one of the most important during my career was the detection of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation that immediately attracted attention [...] both experimentalists interested in measuring the properties of this radiation and theorists, who joined in analyzing the implications". His Shaw Prize citation states "He laid the foundations for almost all modern investigations in cosmology, both theoretical and observational, transforming a highly speculative field into a precision science." Peebles has a long record of innovating the basic ideas, which would be extensively studied later by other scientists. For instance, in 1987, he proposed the primordial isocurvature baryon model for the development of the early universe. Similarly, Peebles contributed to establishing the dark matter problem in the early 1970s. Peebles is also known for the Ostriker–Peebles criterion, relating to the stability of galactic formation. Peebles' body of work was recognized with him being named a 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics, "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology"; Peebles shared half the prize with Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz who had been the first to discover an exoplanet around a main sequence star. Peebles was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1988. Honors Awards Fellow of the American Physical Society (1964) Eddington Medal (1981) Heineman Prize (1982) Fellow of the Royal Society (1982) Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1993) Bruce Medal (1995) Oskar Klein Medal (1997) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1998) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2000), with Allan Sandage Harvey Prize (2001) Shaw Prize (2004) Member of the American Philosophical Society (2004) Crafoord Prize with James E. Gunn and Martin Rees (2005) Hitchcock Professorship (2006) Dirac Medal (2013) Member of the Order of Manitoba (2017) Nobel Prize in Physics (2019) Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. Named after him Asteroid 18242 Peebles Publications Peebles, J. P. E. (2009). Finding the Big Bang (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. Peebles, P. J. E. (1980). Large-Scale Structure