Nobel Physicist Arno A Penzias, Whose Discovery Helped Establish Big Bang Theory, Dies At 90: Report

American physicist Arno Allan Penzias, who won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, has died at 90 years of age. He shared the one-half of the Nobel Prize with Robert Woodrow Wilson. Penzias died on January 22, 2024, at an assisted living facility in San Francisco, due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his son, David, has said, The New York Times reported. 

In 1964, Penzias and Wilson discovered a faint electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation helped establish the Big Bang Theory.

Penzias received his education at the City College of New York and Columbia University. In 1962, he obtained a doctorate from Columbia University. 

Subsequently, the physicist joined Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, and in collaboration with Wilson, began monitoring radio emissions from a ring of glass encircling the Milky Way Galaxy, according to Britannica.