| Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson |
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Hello! It is cold outside, 3 degrees! Three degrees Kelvin, that is, in intergalactic space. This surprising discovery was made by researchers Arno Penzias (1933-) and Robert Wilson (1936-) at Bell Labs in New Jersey, with a receiver originally built for satellite communication. They found that cosmic microwave radiation of uniform strength was received from all directions, and it was supposed that this radiation was the remains of the Big Bang. The shape of the spectrum is indeed like that of a black body with a temperature of 3 degrees Kelvin, supporting the Big Bang theory of creation rather than the steady state hypothesis. Penzias and Wilson shared one half of the 1978 Nobel physics prize for this discovery; the other half went to Piotr Leontevit ch Kapitsa (1894-1984), for his discoveries in the area of low temperature physics. A Swedish stamp has not yet been issued in his honor. |
