AS102 Study Guide - Final Guide: Bell Labs, Horn Antenna, Black-Body Radiation
Document Summary
Robert wilson and arno penzias were working at bell labs in new. University (nearby) learned of their problem and soon determined that penzias and wilson had been measuring this radiation (light) that has been travelling throughout the universe since the age of the universe was 380,000 years old. As this radiation now peaks in the microwave portion of the spectrum and it comes from everywhere in the cosmos as background light it has been labeled as the cosmic microwave background (cmb). Penzias and r. wilson is an intriguing one that resulted in them being awarded the 1978 nobel prize in physics for their discovery. Here is a brief (5 minute) video describing the discovery of the. It s a little quirky but it gets the point across. http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=1kqwwlpympy. The graph shown below is a more recent measurement of the. Cmb over a much broader frequency range and you can see that the graph follows a distinct black body curve.
