WILSON (Wilson), Robert W.

genus. January 10, 1936
. American Radioastron Robert Woodrow Wilson was born in Houston (Texas), he was the only son and eldest of three children, Ralph Wilson, a chemical engineer, an employee of the oil company, and Fannie Mae Wilson (nee Willis)
. Boy in. often accompanied his father when he went to the oil rigs, and 'wandered among the mechanisms, all electronics and Automotive Units'. Due to this he has developed a stable, preserved for a lifetime interest in electronics. Still at school he earned his pocket money repairing radio and television.
In 1953, Mr.. V. entered Rayssky University, alma mater of his father. Finding the first year curriculum Forums 'not too good', he turned his focus to physics. After graduating with honors from the university in 1957, he worked summers in the company 'Exxon', and received his first patent for the invention high-voltage pulse generator - device that characterized the process of drilling.
In autumn 1957. V. began graduate work at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In the first year of graduate school he was introduced to John Bolton, . Australian astronomers, . who came to Caltech, . to build an interferometer (two radio, . interconnected electronic devices, . with the result that they are tantamount to a much larger telescope) at the University Radio Observatory, . located in the Owens Valley, . 200 miles north of Los Angeles,
. V. did his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of Bolton, mapping variations in radiation from the Milky Way, with a wavelength of 31 cm. Doctoral dissertation he defended in 1962. He then proceeded, as expected, post-doctoral year at Caltech and then joined the laboratory of the telephone company 'Bell', and more specifically - in the Radio Laboratory Study in Crawford Hill (New Jersey). Here he worked in collaboration with Arno A. Penzias.
In 1960, Mr.. scientists companies 'Bell' built a 20-foot antenna in the reflectivity Holmdele (New Jersey) to receive signals from the satellite 'Echo'. When the 1963. antenna fulfilled its role, Penzias and In. remade it in Radio Astronomy Telescope. Its precise calibration and extreme sensitivity were ideal for measuring the intensity of extraterrestrial radio. V. Penzias and can also detect and remove from their measurements, grinders, arising from local sources, such as soil, earth's atmosphere and the antenna itself. This ability has allowed them to make absolute measurements of the intensity of background radiation from the regions of the sky near the source of their interest. Reference source, built Penzias, cooled with liquid helium to minimize the thermal radiation and thus get exactly known value of the weak noise. V. invented the radio button to connect the telescope power alternately with the antenna and the reference source, in order to control the noise compared with the noise obtained from space.
In 1964, working first with his system, Penzias and In. measured signals from the Cassiopeia A brightest radio source in the constellation Cassiopeia. Cas-A, as it is commonly called each other specialists, is the formation of supernovae, the expanding shell of gas formed in the explosion of a star. Two researchers, to his surprise, found that the background noise level exceeds the expected value. When this puzzling result was repeated and further measurements, Penzias and In. carefully checked the system antenna and other sources of noise and made the necessary measurements, trying to eliminate error. However, whatever they do, they failed to significantly reduce the abnormally high noise.
Radiation is usually characterized by a wavelength or a related frequency. But since all objects emit electromagnetic energy with wavelengths that are becoming shorter as the heating of objects, the wavelength can also be attributed to temperature. White light is a mixture of all colors up to the violet, the shortest wavelength of visible spectrum. Since the radiation also depends on the color and surface texture of the object, as a starting point take a standard blackbody. Although the black body emits a spectrum of radiation, rather than a single wavelength, each temperature is characterized by a dominant wavelength at which radiation is especially intense. Cold bodies also radiate, but the wavelengths are too large and does not belong to the visible spectrum.
. Unexplained background radiation discovered by Penzias and B, went on long (radio) waves, corresponding to blackbody radiation at a temperature of 3,5 б° K (degrees Kelvin)
. Absolute zero, or 0 б° K, - is the theoretical temperature at which all thermal motion ceases.
Unknown Penzias and In. group of theorists from Princeton University, led by Robert Dick, considered the application at the same cosmological model, under which the universe alternately expands and contracts. According to this model. The universe is currently expanding, . but the gravitational forces can change over time increase the compressive, . and then the universe shrinks to an incredible density, . resulting in a so-called 'big bang', . hypothetical collapse, . a result of which once formed all matter and all the radiation in the universe,
. Dick has suggested that the radiation from very hot, vysokokondensirovannogo early state of the universe after approximately 18 billion. years of cooling can be observed today. Colleague Dick PJ. Peebles has estimated that to date, equivalent to background radiation is 10 б? K (later given the improved value of about 3 б° K), and this result, he reported orally at Johns Hopkins University. George (George) Gamow, the creator of the theory of 'big bang', earlier made a similar suggestion.
In 1965, Mr.. Penzias received a copy of the message Peebles and learned that Peter Roll and David T. Wilkinson, members Dick, build an antenna to measure the predicted cosmic microwave background. He met with the Princeton group, and as a result of two research team agreed to work together on simultaneous publication of two articles in 'Astrophysical Journal' ( "Astrophysical Journal"). Princeton group was to publish an article on the cosmological theory, and Penzias and In. - Detected by their background levels. Additional measurements carried out during the next few years, showed that this radiation has thus the distribution of wavelengths, which has been predicted for the group, Dick black body at the calculated temperature.
Then in. Penzias and asked to research an entirely different kind. They are interested in the possibility of using carbon dioxide laser (instrument, amplifies the light and generating an intense monochromatic beam), to break through the fog. They hoped to achieve useful results in the field of communication, but their efforts proved fruitless. V. also built a device that measured the brightness of the sun at wavelengths of 1 and 2 cm, at which light emission is relatively constant. Passage of these wavelengths through the Earth's atmosphere was of interest because they proposed to use for future satellite communications.
In. returned to radio astronomy in the late 60-ies. Working together with Penzias and atomic physicists from laboratories of the company 'Bell' Keith Jefferts, he created the receiver is able to detect radiation with a wavelength of the order of millimeters. In 1970. they joined their receiver with the newly constructed 36-foot radio telescope on land belonging to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Kitt Peak (Arizona). When the telescope was aimed at the Orion Nebula, the display of the receiver immediately appeared spectral line (characteristic radiation) of carbon monoxide. V. his colleagues later found six other interstellar molecules. In 1972. laboratory company 'Bell' decided to build equipment with millimeter wavelength in Crawford Hill. In addition to leading the development and construction of antennas in. was responsible for the safety of equipment and prepare it for radio astronomy research. In 1976. He was appointed head of the Radiophysics Research Division in the laboratories of the company 'Bell'. Two years later he became an associate professor at the University of New York.
In. Penzias and divided between being half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1978. 'for the discovery of the microwave background radiation'. The other half received the award Pyotr Kapitsa. In his Nobel lecture in. said: 'The cosmic microwave cosmic background radiation, . if we consider it as a sequela, . arose after the 'big bang', . which occurred in the event of the Universe, . is one of the most powerful tools for the determination of the structure and dynamics of the universe '.,
. After he received the Nobel Prize in
. stayed to work on installing in Holmdele, where he explored the dark clouds of gas in the Milky Way. During work, he found that 'in such clouds are concentrated significant portion of gas in our own galaxy and because of such clouds new stars are born. "
In 1958, Mr.. V. married Elizabeth Rode Souin, also from Houston, they have two sons and a daughter. V. and his family love to ski in the winter skiing and skating, he is also in his free time playing the piano.
In addition to the Nobel Prize in. and Arno Penzias shared the Henry Draper Medal of the American National Academy of Sciences (1977) and the Herschel Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of London (1977). V. is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, the American Physical Society, the International Union radionauk and the American Academy of Science and Art