Silicon Valley's red-carpet night for scientists

The Breakthrough Prize event at NASA's Ames Research Center Thursday was designed to honor the world's leading minds in life sciences and physics by offering them the star treatment usually reserved for actors, athletes and musicians.

The red carpet was lined by cameras and reporters, the French Laundry's Thomas Keller prepared the meal, actor Kevin Spacey hosted the show and (almost) everyone arrived in tuxedos or gowns.

The 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was shared by Michael Green of the University of Cambridge and John Schwarz of the California Institute of Technology "for opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces."

"There are many organizations that fund research, so this is a slightly different approach," said Yuri Milner, the wealthy Internet investor, onetime physics student and key mover behind the Breakthrough Prize, during an interview along the rope line.

[...] in one clear sign of the inverse reality that is Silicon Valley, where the tech nerd is firmly atop the social hierarchy, all heads instantly swiveled early in the evening when Google co-founder Sergey Brin hit the red carpet.