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

Arno Penzias at Bell Labs won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering “cosmic microwave background radiation” from the Big Bang.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 29, 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

Examining the antenna, Dr. Penzias and Dr. Wilson “subjected its electric circuits to scrutiny comparable to that used in preparing a manned spacecraft,” Walter Sullivan wrote in The New York Times in 1965.

From New York Times • Jan. 22, 2024

At roughly the same time as Penzias and Wilson were investigating noise in their detector, two American physicists at nearby Princeton University, Bob Dicke and Jim Peebles, were also taking an interest in microwaves.

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