Penzias, Arno Allan (1933-2024), a German-born American astrophysicist, discovered and studied cosmic microwave background radiation. In 1978, Penzias and his American colleague Robert Wilson won half of the Nobel Prize in physics. The other half of the prize was awarded to the Soviet physicist Pyotr Kapitsa for his research in low-temperature physics.
In the early 1960’s, while observing radio emissions from a ring of gas surrounding our galaxy, the Milky Way, Penzias and Wilson noticed a uniform background static suggesting that there is a residue of heat energy in the universe corresponding to a temperature of about 3 K. One kelvin (K) equals one Celsius degree above absolute zero. (Absolute zero is –273.15° Celsius or –459.67° Fahrenheit.) This faint warmth is now generally held to be the result of the remaining background radiation resulting from the explosion in which the universe is thought to have been created. See Cosmology (The big bang theory).
Arno Penzias was born on April 26, 1933, in Munich, Germany. He studied at Columbia University in New York City, where he gained a doctorate in 1962. He then joined Bell Telephone Laboratories (then the research department of the Bell Telephone Company) in Holmdel, New Jersey. In 1981, Penzias became vice president of research in the organization. He retired in 1998. Penzias died on Jan. 22, 2024.
