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:
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Nothing significant was really said,
Though all agreed the talk superb....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.”
—William James (1842–1910)