Arno Allan Penzias

Arno Allan Penzias
Penzias in 1982
Born	(1933-04-26)April 26, 1933 Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Died	January 22, 2024(2024-01-22) (aged 90) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Citizenship	Germany (until 1935) Stateless (1935–1946) United States (from 1946)
Education	City College of New York (BS) Columbia University (MA, PhD)
Known for	Cosmic microwave background radiation
Spouse	Sherry Levit ​ (m. 1996)​
Children	5
Awards	Henry Draper Medal (1977) Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) Harold Pender Award (1991) IRI Medal (1998)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Bell Labs Columbia University
Thesis	A tunable maser radiometer and the measurement of 21 cm line emission from free hydrogen in the Pegasus I cluster of galaxies (1962)
Doctoral advisor	Charles H. Townes
Doctoral students	Pierre Encrenaz

Part of a series on
Physical cosmology
Big Bang · Universe Age of the universe Chronology of the universe
Early universe Inflation · Nucleosynthesis Backgrounds Gravitational wave (GWB) Microwave (CMB) · Neutrino (CNB)
Expansion · Future Hubble's law · Redshift Expansion of the universe FLRW metric · Friedmann equations Inhomogeneous cosmology Future of an expanding universe Ultimate fate of the universe
Components · Structure Components Lambda-CDM model Dark energy · Dark matter Structure Shape of the universe Galaxy filament · Galaxy formation Large quasar group Large-scale structure Reionization · Structure formation
Experiments Black Hole Initiative (BHI) BOOMERanG Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Dark Energy Survey Planck space observatory Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey ("2dF") Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
Scientists Aaronson Alfvén Alpher Copernicus de Sitter Dicke Ehlers Einstein Ellis Friedmann Galileo Gamow Guth Hawking Hubble Huygens Kepler Lemaître Mather Newton Penrose Penzias Rubin Schmidt Smoot Suntzeff Sunyaev Tolman Wilson Zeldovich List of cosmologists
Subject history Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation History of the Big Bang theory Timeline of cosmological theories
Category Astronomy portal
v t e

Arno Allan Penzias (/ˈpɛnziəs/; April 26, 1933 – January 22, 2024) was an American physicist and radio astronomer. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.