History of Significant Events
1896: Charles Edouard Guillaume estimates the "radiation of the stars" to be 5.6 K.Ref (PDF)
1926: Sir Arthur Eddington estimates the non-thermal radiation of starlight in the galaxy has an effective temperature of 3.2 K.
1930s: Cosmologist Ernst Regener calculates that the non-thermal spectrum of cosmic rays in the galaxy has an effective temperature of 2.8 K
1931: The term microwave first appears in print: ""When trials with wavelengths as low as 18 cm. were made known, there was undisguised surprise that the problem of the micro-wave had been solved so soon." Telegraph & Telephone Journal XVII. 179/1"
1938: Nobel Prize winner (1920) Walther Nernst reestimates the cosmic ray temperature as 0.75 K
1946: The term "microwave" is first used in print in an astronomical context in an article "Microwave Radiation from the Sun and Moon" by Robert Dicke and Robert Beringer.
1946: Robert Dicke predicts a microwave background radiation temperature of 20 K (ref: Helge Kragh)
1946: Robert Dicke predicts a microwave background radiation temperature of "less that 20 K" but later revised to 45 K (ref: Stephen G. Brush)
1946: George Gamow estimates a temperature of 50 K
1948: Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman re-estimate Gamow's estimate at 5 K.
1949: Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman re-re-estimate Gamow's estimate at 28 K.
1960s: Robert Dicke re-estimates a MBR (microwave background radiation) temperature of 40 K (ref: Helge Kragh)
1960s: Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson measure the temperature to be approximately 3 K. Robert Dicke, P. J. E. Peebles, P. G. Roll and D. T. Wilkinson interpret this radiation as a signature of the big bang.
Read more about this topic: Cosmic Background Radiation
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, significant and/or events:
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“By the power elite, we refer to those political, economic, and military circles which as an intricate set of overlapping cliques share decisions having at least national consequences. In so far as national events are decided, the power elite are those who decide them.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)