| 1 | | == '''Astronomy Colloquium / Spring 2009''' == |
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| 3 | | |
| 4 | | ''' April 29 ''' |
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| 6 | | ''' Michael Way''' |
| 7 | | |
| 8 | | ''' Goddard Institute for Space Science''' |
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| 10 | | "A history of the prediction and detection of the expansion of the Universe and of the CMB" |
| 11 | | |
| 12 | | I will talk about the complicated history of the prediction and |
| 13 | | discovery of the expansion of the universe and, of course, the cosmic |
| 14 | | microwave background. We'll start with the "nebulae" observations of |
| 15 | | Slipher in 1912 and end up with the 2006 Nobel Prize. I will also show |
| 16 | | that some of the common wisdom today is incorrect with respect to the |
| 17 | | credit given to various "titans" of Astronomy in this field. |
| 18 | | |
| 19 | | Background: This talk has mainly grown out some discussions of the history |
| 20 | | of the prediction of the CMB I've had over the years with Igor Novikov, Andrei |
| 21 | | Doroshkevich and Pavel Naselsky when they were all in Copenhagen together. |
| 22 | | I've also recently had discussions with Jim Peebles, Peter Roll |
| 23 | | (of Bob Dicke's original CMB group), and E.A. Ohm (who built the original |
| 24 | | Project Echo receiver on the Bell Labs telescope that "discovered" the CMB) |
| 25 | | to better understand how the Princeton group was "scooped" by Penzian & Wilson |
| 26 | | at Bell Labs a mere 35 miles away. |
