Awards & Winners

Robert Woodrow Wilson

Date of Birth 10-January-1936
Place of Birth Houston
(Texas, United States of America, Area codes 281, 346, 713, and 832, Area code 281, Area code 713, Area code 832)
Nationality United States of America
Profession Physicist, Scientist, Astronomer
Robert Woodrow Wilson is an American astronomer, 1978 Nobel laureate in physics, who with Arno Allan Penzias discovered in 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation. 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.

Awards by Robert Woodrow Wilson

Check all the awards nominated and won by Robert Woodrow Wilson.

1978


Nobel Prize in Physics
(for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation)

1977


Henry Draper Medal
(For their discovery of the cosmic microwave radiation (a remnant of the very early universe), and their leading role in the discovery of interstellar molecules.)