Robert Woodrow Wilson

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For the American President, see Woodrow Wilson.

Robert Woodrow Wilson (left) with Arno Allan Penzias
Wilson penzias200.jpg
Born (1936-01-10) January 10, 1936 (age 77)
Houston, Texas, USA
Nationality United States
Fields Physics
Alma mater

Rice University,

California Institute of Technology
Known for Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Notable awards Henry Draper Medal (1977)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1978)

Robert Woodrow Wilson (born January 10, 1936) is an American astronomer, 1978 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 third scientist, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, for unrelated work.

While working on a new type of antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel Township, 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 corroboration of the Big Bang theory.

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Life and work [edit]

Robert Woodrow Wilson was born on January 10, 1936, in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Lamar High School in River Oaks 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 of the National Academy of Sciences in 1977.[2]

Wilson has been a resident of Holmdel Township, New Jersey.[3]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ "Distinguished HISD Alumni," Houston Independent School District
  2. ^ "Henry Draper Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 24 February 2011. 
  3. ^ Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971-1980, Editor Stig Lundqvist, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992. Autobiography. Accessed March 15, 2011. "We still live in the house in Holmdel which we bought when I first came to Bell Laboratories."

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Authority control
Nobel Laureates in Physics (1976–2000)
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