September 17, 2016 Saturday
Bedtime Story
The First to Predict Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
When Ralph decided to send his dissertation for publication as a paper, Gamow had rather a wicked idea blessed as he was with a naughty sense of humor.
He noticed the names Alpher and Gamow rhymed with the Greek alphabets alpha and gamma.
Not to leave out beta and make a complete alpha, beta, gamma Gamow in the authorship added the name of Hans Bethe as the second author.
He actually added Hans Bethe (in absentia).
When Bethe was sent a copy of the paper before publication, he liked the science of the paper and decided to cancel out the words "in absentia" after his name.
Everyone thought it was a great joke except for Ralph Alpher who felt cheated.
Just as the famous dissertation went for publication in 1948, Ralph Alpher came across another physicist at the APL of Johns Hopkins.
He was the 34-year old Robert Herman, another forgotten pioneer.
These two set out to work on another paper in cosmology in which they proposed that the very early universe would have been a hot opaque plasma of ionized gas.
The radiation coming from it should behave like that of a black body.
A black body absorbs all EM (electromagnetic) radiation that falls on it.
Being in thermodynamic equilibrium with its surrounding, it emits radiation back at the same rate.
This radiation has a specific spectrum that depends solely on its temperature.
The early universe had free electrons everywhere as they were still unable to "stick" to the deuterium and alpha particle nuclei.
These free electrons would have impeded the movement of photons preventing the travel of radiation.
When the universe got 350,000 years old, then it had expanded and cooled sufficiently to allow the electrons to combine with atomic nuclei resulting in the elemental hydrogen and helium that we see now all over.
This then also allowed the photons and hence the radiation to travel unimpeded.
This radiation, Alpher and Herman predicted, should now have cooled down to 5 Kelvin and must be present all around us as a black body residual radiation of the Big Bang.
The paper was largely ignored until 2 very ordinary engineers working at Bell Laboratory Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally tripped on to this cosmic microwave background radiation.
Eventually however, quite late in 1993, their work was finally recognized and they were bestowed with the prestigious Henry Draper medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
They later went on to write the whole account in a book titled:
"Genesis of the Big Bang"
that was published in 2001.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Genesis of the Big Bang
The cosmic microwave background radiation has a thermal black body spectrum at a temperature of 2.72548 +- 0.00057 K
Bedtime Story
The First to Predict Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
When Ralph decided to send his dissertation for publication as a paper, Gamow had rather a wicked idea blessed as he was with a naughty sense of humor.
He noticed the names Alpher and Gamow rhymed with the Greek alphabets alpha and gamma.
Not to leave out beta and make a complete alpha, beta, gamma Gamow in the authorship added the name of Hans Bethe as the second author.
He actually added Hans Bethe (in absentia).
When Bethe was sent a copy of the paper before publication, he liked the science of the paper and decided to cancel out the words "in absentia" after his name.
Everyone thought it was a great joke except for Ralph Alpher who felt cheated.
Just as the famous dissertation went for publication in 1948, Ralph Alpher came across another physicist at the APL of Johns Hopkins.
He was the 34-year old Robert Herman, another forgotten pioneer.
These two set out to work on another paper in cosmology in which they proposed that the very early universe would have been a hot opaque plasma of ionized gas.
The radiation coming from it should behave like that of a black body.
A black body absorbs all EM (electromagnetic) radiation that falls on it.
Being in thermodynamic equilibrium with its surrounding, it emits radiation back at the same rate.
This radiation has a specific spectrum that depends solely on its temperature.
The early universe had free electrons everywhere as they were still unable to "stick" to the deuterium and alpha particle nuclei.
These free electrons would have impeded the movement of photons preventing the travel of radiation.
When the universe got 350,000 years old, then it had expanded and cooled sufficiently to allow the electrons to combine with atomic nuclei resulting in the elemental hydrogen and helium that we see now all over.
This then also allowed the photons and hence the radiation to travel unimpeded.
This radiation, Alpher and Herman predicted, should now have cooled down to 5 Kelvin and must be present all around us as a black body residual radiation of the Big Bang.
The paper was largely ignored until 2 very ordinary engineers working at Bell Laboratory Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally tripped on to this cosmic microwave background radiation.
Eventually however, quite late in 1993, their work was finally recognized and they were bestowed with the prestigious Henry Draper medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
They later went on to write the whole account in a book titled:
"Genesis of the Big Bang"
that was published in 2001.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Genesis of the Big Bang
The cosmic microwave background radiation has a thermal black body spectrum at a temperature of 2.72548 +- 0.00057 K
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