Penzias

American  

[pent-see-uhs, pen-zee-] / ˈpɛnt si əs, ˈpɛn zi- /

noun

1. Arno Allan, 1933–2024, U.S. astrophysicist, born in Germany: Nobel Prize in Physics 1978.

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Penzias British  

/ ˈpɛntsɪəs, ˈpɛnz- /

noun

1. Arno Allan. born 1933, US astrophysicist, who shared the Nobel prize for physics (1978) with Robert W. Wilson for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation

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Example Sentences

The old guard held that the universe was eternal and unchanging, but in 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson discovered the faint background radiation left over from the cosmos’ earliest moments.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026

In the 1960s Stephen Hawking demonstrated the Big Bang in theory, while Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson had detected the background radiation that proved decisive evidence of the event.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026

Years back, one of its Nobel laureates, Arno Penzias, told me: “You have to understand, this was a problem-rich environment.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 28, 2026

In the fall of 1938, the Penzias family was arrested and put on a train for deportation to Poland.

From New York Times • Jan. 22, 2024

It was this radiation that Penzias and Wilson found in 1965.

From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking