When testing a new, very sensitive microwave detector in 1965 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, Penzias and Wilson discovered that the universe gives off a uniform level of background microwave radiation. This confirmed Alexander Friedmann’sidea that the universe looks the same in every direction, as well as suggestions that light from the early universe should be so red-shifted that it would now be detected only as microwave radiation. Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize in 1978 for their findings.
Get the entire A Brief History of Time LitChart as a printable PDF.
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson Character Timeline in A Brief History of Time
The timeline below shows where the character Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson appears in A Brief History of Time. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...but further out it does. This was further backed up by two American physicists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. They tested a very sensitive microwave detector, which picked up a lot...
(full context)
...it was so long ago that energy would now have red-shifted to become microwave radiation. Penzias and Wilson heard about this, and saw they had already found the evidence. The latter...
(full context)
...Ryle looked into radio waves from different galaxies, and found variations that disproved the theory. Penzias and Wilson’s earlier discovery also suggested the universe had been denser in the past, further...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...first hot stage of the universe should still be present in the universe today, which Penzias and Wilson found to be true. Gamow and Alpher’s assumption aligns with the large amount...
(full context)
...rate of expansion is uniform across the universe, for example. This is backed up by Penzias and Wilson’s discovery of uniform microwave radiation.
(full context)
