Arno Allan Penzias

Arno Allan Penzias (Template:IPAc-en; April 26, 1933 – January 22, 2024) was an American physicist and radio astronomer. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

Early life, family and education

Penzias was born in Munich, Germany, the son of Justine (née Eisenreich) and Karl Penzias, who ran a leather business.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His grandparents had come to Munich from Poland and were among the leaders of the Reichenbachstrasse synagogue. At age six, he and his brother Gunther were among the Jewish children evacuated to Britain as part of the Kindertransport rescue operation.<ref name= Kellerman>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="npr">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name= Hafner>Template:Cite news</ref> Later, his parents also fled Nazi Germany, first for the UK, and then for the US, and the family settled in the Bronx, New York City, New York, in 1940.<ref name= Hafner /><ref name="Nobel">Template:Nobelprize including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1978 The Origin of Elements</ref> In 1946, Penzias became a US citizen.<ref name="wapo">Template:Cite news</ref>

After he graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1951, he enrolled at the City College of New York to study chemistry, but he changed majors to physics and graduated in 1954, ranked near the top of his class.<ref name= Hafner /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Penzias thereafter served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a radar officer for two years.<ref name=npr />

Career

Penzias' involvement with radar in the Signal Corps led to a research assistantship in the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory, which was then heavily involved in microwave physics. Penzias worked under Charles H. Townes, who later invented the maser.<ref name=wapo/> Penzias enrolled as a graduate student at Columbia University in 1956, where he earned a master's degree and a PhD in physics, the latter in 1962.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Thereafter, at Bell Labs in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, he and Robert Woodrow Wilson worked on ultra-sensitive cryogenic microwave receivers, intended for radio astronomy observations. In 1964, on building their most sensitive antenna/receiver system, the pair encountered radio noise that they could not explain.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was far less energetic than the radiation given off by the Milky Way, and it was isotropic, so they assumed their instrument was subject to interference by terrestrial sources. They tried, and then rejected, the hypothesis that the radio noise emanated from New York City. An examination of the microwave horn antenna showed it was full of bat and pigeon droppings, which Penzias described as "white dielectric material". After the pair removed the dung buildup the noise remained. Having rejected all sources of interference, Penzias contacted Robert H. Dicke, who suggested it might be the background radiation predicted by some cosmological theories. The pair agreed with Dicke to publish side-by-side letters in the Astrophysical Journal, with Penzias and Wilson describing their observations<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and Dicke suggesting the interpretation as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the radio remnant of the Big Bang.<ref name="Nobel"/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> This proved to be landmark evidence for the Big Bang and provided substantial confirmation for predictions made by Ralph Asher Alpher, Robert Herman and George Gamow in the 1940s and 1950s.

Penzias and Wilson, standing under the Template:Cvt Holmdel Horn Antenna in New Jersey that brought their most notable discovery

Honors and awards

Penzias was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences in 1975.<ref name=AAAS>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1977, Penzias and Wilson received the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences.<ref name="Draper">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name= Kellerman /> The two were awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, sharing it with Pyotr Kapitsa. Kapitsa's work on low-temperature physics was unrelated to Penzias's and Wilson's.<ref name=N78>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1979, Penzias received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. In 1998, he was awarded the IRI Medal from the Industrial Research Institute.

On April 26, 2019, the Nürnberger Astronomische Gesellschaft e.V. (NAG) inaugurated the Template:Cvt radio telescope at the Regiomontanus-Sternwarte, the public observatory of Nuremberg, and dedicated this instrument to Arno Penzias.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On September 11, 2023, the Radio Club of America said announced it had named an award, the Dr. Arno A. Penzias Award for Contributions to Basic Research in the Radio Sciences, to recognize his significant contributions to basic research involving radio frequency and related subjects. The club also announced that the first recipient of the award would be named in 2024.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

In 1954, Penzias married Anne Barras; the couple had three children, David, Mindy, and Laurie, before they divorced.<ref name= Kellerman /> Penzias was a resident of Highland Park, New Jersey, in the 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1996, he married Silicon Valley executive Sherry Levit, becoming stepfather to her son Carson and daughter Victoria.<ref name= Hafner /><ref>Schlessinger B., Bernard S. and June H., Who's Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901–1990, (Oryx Press, 1991) p. 203</ref>

Penzias died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at an assisted living facility in San Francisco, on January 22, 2024, at age 90.<ref name= Hafner />

Works

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See also

• Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• Template:Nobelprize including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1978, "The Origin of Elements"
• The first part of the article "Ideas" authored by Arno Penzias that was published in Science Reporter magazine
• The second part of the article "Ideas" authored by Arno Penzias
• A Whisper From Space (IMDb)
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• Nürnberger Astronomische Gesellschaft e.V.: Web-Seite Arno-Penzias-Radioteleskop (german)