Science
Arno Penzias
Radio astronomer and microwave-background observer
Also known as A. A. Penzias
Photograph · Image credit
Who they are
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson measured an unexplained excess of microwave antenna temperature and reported their instrument checks in 1965. A separate Princeton team connected such radiation with a hot early universe. Penzias’s contribution here is the observational measurement, which must be distinguished from the companion theoretical interpretation and credited jointly with Wilson.
The paired measurement and interpretation papers show how an unexpected instrumental signal became evidence about cosmic history.
Selected contributions
- Coauthored the excess microwave-temperature measurement with Robert Wilson.Source ↗
Selected works
Academic paper · 1965 · Historical journal article
A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s
Penzias and Wilson report residual microwave antenna temperature after examining instrumental and environmental explanations. Its measurement is paired historically with a separate paper offering a hot-universe interpretation.
Reading scope & citation
Reused prior inspected evidence: All three pages of this short paper’s extracted text inspected, including calibration discussion; not independent data reanalysis.
In the timeline
Documented connections
Documented · co authored with
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson co-authored the microwave-background measurement paper.
Dicke, Peebles, Roll and Wilkinson supplied the separate cosmological interpretation paper.
Read the relationship record →Biography sources & portrait credit
- A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s ↗The Astrophysical Journal / American Astronomical Society; NASA ADS scan
Portrait credit
Willy Pragher / Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. CC BY 3.0 de. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph. Cropped to 4:5, resized to 320 × 400 and converted to WebP.
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