Arno Allan Penzias Quotes

Arno Allan Penzias was born in Munich, Germany. He is an American physicist, radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics who is co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory of cosmology. In 1946, Penzias became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1951 and after enrolling to read chemistry at the City College of New York, he graduated in physics near the top of his class in 1954. Following graduation, Penzias served for two years as a radar officer in the U.S Army Signal Corps. This led to a research assistantship in the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory, which was then heavily involved in microwave physics. Penzias worked under Charles Townes, who later invented the maser. In 1956 Penzias enrolled as a student at Columbia and by 1962 had been awarded a Ph.D.