"An Annoying Hum"

"An Annoying Hum"

by Alessandro13

"In 1965, two young radio astronomers at Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were trying to use a large antenna for communications, but an incessant and annoying hum made any experiment impossible. This continuous background noise came from the receiver wherever the antenna was positioned and wherever the experiments were performed. The temperature of this anomalous signal was about 3 degrees above absolute zero. It was a very weak signal, but persistent and irritating, coming from all points of the sky, day and night, in all seasons.

For a whole year, Penzias and Wilson spared no effort in trying to track down the source of that noise and get rid of it (they were convinced that the noise was produced by their system, no cosmic source emitted at the wavelength to which they were tuned, 7.35 cm, and none could have emitted at such a uniform and constant wavelength).

They checked the entire electrical system, reassembled the instruments, shook the wires, analyzed the circuits, dusted the electrical outlets, covered the joints and rivets with electrical tape, chased away the pigeons and cleaned the satellite dish of their droppings, examined every solder joint. But there was nothing they could do.

Unbeknownst to them, and only 50 kilometers away, at Princeton University, the research group led by Robert Dicke was following a hypothesis suggested in the 1940s by the Russian-born astrophysicist George Gamow, according to which, if one peered deep enough into space, one could detect some of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang. Gamow had calculated that, once it had crossed the vastness of the cosmos, the radiation would reach the Earth in the form of microwaves.

In fact, the hissing sound that tormented Penzias and Wilson was precisely what Gamow postulated: it was the cosmic microwave background. The two young scientists, without realizing it, had discovered the edge of the universe, they had "seen" the first photons - the oldest light in the universe - although time and distance had transformed them into microwaves.

It's nice to think of the cosmic background radiation as low-volume music broadcast by speakers placed in every corner of space, an ancient music, which tells us about our origins and which, until a few years ago, everyone could listen to. It was enough to tune the old analog television to any channel that it did not receive well: about 1% of the electrostatic disturbances were due to this ancient residue of the Big Bang. Those who could not see anything on the screen, instead of complaining, should have rejoiced: they were witnessing the birth of the universe."

- https://extremelyinterestingfacts.quora.com/