Arno Penzias: 1933-2024
February 2024 :
Every day, the news media will let us know about the latest actor, singer, politician, who died. The whole set of achievements and marriages will be spelled out in great detail. But, nowhere in the radio or television has there been acknowledgment of one of the persons who changed the format of our universe.
Arno Penzias, with Robert Wilson, shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the cosmic background radiation.
In 1962, Penzias began working for Bell Labs, in New Jersey, developing microwave receivers for radio astronomy. He worked with Wilson on a unique 6-meter diameter horn antenna that in 1964, began picking up excess radiation at 3K. Originally they thought they were picking up terrestrial noise, including the possibility of it being caused by an overabundance of pigeon guano building up within the equipment. Instead, they had picked up the background radiation first theorized in the 1940s by cosmologists Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman.
After working for 37 years at Bell Labs, Penzias retired, then joined the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
Dr. Penzias was 90.
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stand at the 15-meter Holmdel Horn Antenna that brought their most notable discovery.
