Robert Woodrow Wilson
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For the American President, see Woodrow Wilson.
| Robert Woodrow Wilson (left) with Arno Allan Penzias | |
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| Born | January 10, 1936 Houston, Texas, USA |
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| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Physics |
| Alma mater | Rice University |
| Known for | Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) |
Robert Woodrow Wilson (born January 10, 1936) is an American astronomer, Nobel laureate in physics, who with Arno Allan Penzias discovered in 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The award purse was also shared with a 3rd scientist, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa for unrelated work.
While working on a new type of antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey, they found a source of noise in the atmosphere that they could not explain. After removing all potential sources of noise, including pigeon droppings on the antenna, the noise was finally identified as CMB, which served as important confirmation of the Big Bang theory.
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[edit] Life and work
Robert Woodrow Wilson was born on January 10, 1936, in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Lamar High School in downtown Houston[1] and studied as an undergraduate at Rice University (Houston), where he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa society. His graduate work was done at California Institute of Technology.
Wilson and Penzias also won the Henry Draper Medal in 1977.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- "Distinguished HISD Alumni", Houston Independent School District, Houston, Texas, 2008.
[edit] External links
- Robert Woodrow Wilson: Official Nobel page
- Annotated bibliography for Robert Wilson from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
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