What influence does the discovery of cosmic microwave background have on human science?

The discovery of cosmic microwave background is considered as one of the most important scientific achievements of mankind in the 20th century.

Arnold? Allen? Penzias Arno Allan penzias 1978 Nobel Prize winner in physics: The discovery of the cosmic microwave background signal platform was drowned by the cries of 2,500 Jewish children. The train will take them to Holland, and then take a boat from Rotterdam to England. At the moment when the whistle sounded, all the parents who saw me off could no longer control their emotions and ran after the moving train. These are the scenes in the documentary "A Record of War Survival".

Arnold? Allen? Arnold Allen penzias is one of these children. He was only 6 years old when he and his younger brother said goodbye to their parents and boarded the "children's transport" train. Forty years later, he won the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics, which led to one of the greatest discoveries of modern science and reshaped human understanding of the universe.

1April 26, 933 Arnault? Allen? Penzias was born in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, the birthplace of Nazi movement. Earlier this year, Hitler came to power. 1938165438+1from the early morning of October 9 to 10, Nazi youth league, Gestapo and SS all over Germany disguised themselves as civilians, waved sticks, and frantically beat, smashed and looted Jewish houses, shops and churches. Broken glass shone like crystal in the moonlight, and nearly a hundred Jews were killed. This event is called "Crystal Night" in history.

"Crystal Night" sounded the alarm! Jews feel more and more serious real danger, and they urgently need to seek refuge before the storm warning. Five days after Crystal Night, Jewish groups in Germany, Austria, Britain and other countries quickly appealed to British Prime Minister Chamberlain, asking the British government to provide temporary shelter for Jewish children.

The next day, after a debate, the British cabinet decided to implement the "Kindertransport" plan, allowing Jewish children under the age of 18 to enter the UK without an adult. 1938 On February 2nd, three weeks after Crystal Night, the first batch of nearly 200 Jewish children arrived in harriet in the east of England. In the "time window" less than one year before the outbreak of World War II, about 10000 Jewish children entered Britain.

At that time, the sad scene of "children's sports" was hard to describe in words. In order to get their children out of the imminent disaster, parents endure the separation of flesh and blood that is likely to be permanent and send their children on an unknown journey. The sudden change frightened the children. Young children mistakenly think that they have been abandoned by their parents, while older children have a hunch that this may be their farewell to their parents. The "children's transport" program has many restrictions. They will receive vocational training during their temporary stay in the UK, but eventually they must leave the UK to avoid competing with British citizens for employment opportunities. Jewish groups provide funds for children refugees who come to Britain for the first time, so as not to become a financial burden for the British public, and provide economic security for re-immigrants.

"In order to avoid unnecessary scenes", the farewell party will be arranged a few blocks away from the platform. Each child is only allowed to carry one suitcase, one bag, ten German marks and one photo. Books, toys and valuables are prohibited, and will be confiscated by uniformed officials once found. After arriving in England, local families came to adopt these children. This is indeed a noble charity act, but the children's feelings are not fully considered in its implementation. Naturally, children who are "good-looking" (and not very Jewish) are quickly picked away; And those children who are "not very good-looking" can only live in temporary dormitories. Once they are not selected, they can only accept unpaid jobs.

For us today, all this seems so far away, even illusory and incredible, and can only happen in history books. But think about it carefully, the era of "Children's Games" is only a few generations ago, even less than a century!

90% Jewish children on the "Children's Transport" train bid farewell to their parents. Compared with them, what about Arnault? Allen? Penzias is undoubtedly extremely lucky. 1939 At the end of spring, at the age of six, he and his younger brother each carried a box and a bag of candy, and they boarded the "Children's Games" train under the instructions of their parents to "take care of their younger brother". After the train started, he comforted his brother that "it's all right now". Not long after, my parents, who had already made plans, also came to England and the whole family was reunited.

In the face of domestic and foreign voices, the US Congress passed a bill and agreed to accept Jewish children immigrants conditionally. While thanking this goodwill, we should not ignore that the American government has carefully designed a harsh selection standard. Jews who are not in the interests of the United States (not rich economically, lacking skills that the United States needs, etc.). ) will be rejected. As for what kind of fate awaits them after returning to their hometown, it is not within the consideration of the US government.

1939 19 In February, the penzias family boarded a seagoing ship and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to "the land of infinite opportunities". The family landed on Alice Island, which is the entry point for future immigrants. In addition to detailed physical examination, future immigrants will be asked some personal questions.

For example, "What do you do? Huh, how much money you got there? How did you get it? Show me your money. Who bought the ticket for you? Have you ever signed a contract in Europe to work in the United States? Do you have any family or friends in America? Is anyone willing to vouch for you? Are you an anarchist? Are you a capitalist? " The clothes of prospective immigrants are marked with letters representing various test scores by immigration officials with colored pens, and some of them will be eliminated. In order to get away with it, some clever would-be immigrants secretly wiped off the marks that were not good for them.

It is not groundless for Jewish immigrants to call Alice Island "the Island of Tears". In order to avoid being sent back to the "old world" to wait for death, many people who were eliminated would rather commit suicide in Alice Island. In the story of Ellis island (later by Robert? Bob made a documentary), George? Captain Falric wrote: "For me, Alice Island is a place of exile, a space without space." The penzias family passed the immigration review procedure in Alice Island and entered the United States.

After they settled in new york, the two brothers started to go to school, and their parents found jobs as apartment managers, so the whole family could live in the basement of the apartment for free. A few years later, my mother worked as a sewing worker in a clothing factory, and my father was hired as a carpenter by the Metropolitan Museum. With the relief of work pressure and constant adaptation to the environment, my father found a part-time job in an insurance company and even served as the head of a local trade union. The penzias family's economic situation has improved, and they have returned to the middle class life before Crystal Night.

195 1 After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, Arno? Allen? Penzias entered new york City College to study chemistry. I changed my major twice and got a bachelor's degree in physics from 1954. In the following two years, he served as a radar officer in the US Army Communications Corps and got married. 1956 entered the radiation laboratory of Columbia University, where Charles? Under the guidance of Downs, he studied microwave physics, and obtained a master's degree and a doctor's degree in physics at 1958 and 1962 respectively. His doctoral thesis is about designing a laser amplifier for radio astronomy experiments.

After receiving his doctorate, penzias went to New Jersey and joined Bell Labs at AT&T. Although his original intention was only short-term postdoctoral research, he eventually worked there for 37 years. There were two theories about the origin of the universe. The first is called "steady-state cosmology", which was developed by the astrophysicist Herman? Band-aid, Thomas? Gold and Fred? Huo Yier proposed it in 1948. They believe that the universe remains unchanged in time and space.

The second theory of the origin of the universe is more controversial, which holds that the universe is constantly expanding. 1929, Edwin? Hubble suggested that galaxies move at an extremely fast speed, which means that the space between galaxies is expanding. With George? Some physicists, led by Gamov, adopted this view that the distance between galaxies must have been smaller in the past. If the limit is reversed, it means that the universe was once a dense point. Based on the laws of physics, Gamov and his colleagues proved that the density and temperature of the universe were extremely high at the moment of its birth.

Everything in the universe began at the moment of the Big Bang. 1964, penzias and his colleague Robert? Wilson ended the argument between the two theories. At that time, they were testing an ultra-sensitive low-temperature microwave receiver for radio astronomical observation. Microwave is an electromagnetic radiation wave (such as light, radio or roentgen rays) with the wavelength range of 1mm to 1mm, which can be applied to microwave ovens, radars, mobile phones, wireless local area networks, Bluetooth communication equipment and so on.

This very sensitive giant snail receiver receives a very weak but persistent "hissing" sound signal. Because antennas in all directions receive exactly the same signal strength, they can't identify and track the original direction of the signal. At first, they suspected that this persistent "annoying" signal came from the neighboring city of new york. Later, they suspected that the noise came from pigeon droppings polluting the giant antenna. After cleaning the antenna, the noise remains isotropic.

After eliminating all possible noise sources, they concluded that the signal came from cosmic rays in outer space. 1965, penzias and Wilson published "Measuring extra antenna temperature at 4080 MHz" in the Journal of Astrophysics, and announced this discovery. Soon, with Robert? Cosmologists at Princeton University, led by Dickie, published "Cosmic Blackbody Radiation" in the same magazine, arguing that this extra radiation is a signal of the cosmic microwave background and comes from the remnants of the Big Bang when the universe was formed.

The discovery of cosmic microwave background confirmed the Big Bang theory. Scientists speculate that the universe had a definite birth time, about 654.38+0.5 billion years ago. The discovery of cosmic microwave background is considered as one of the most important scientific achievements of mankind in the 20th century, and it is still of great significance even after more than 50 years. Weak microwave noise and the remnants of the big bang are still the sources of new discoveries in cosmology. 1972, Arnault? Penzias became the head of the radio physics research department of Bell Laboratories.

From 65438 to 0976, he was appointed as the director of the radio research laboratory, leading more than 60 young scientists and engineers to study radio and its communication applications, while continuing his personal research in radio astronomy. 198 1 was promoted to vice president in charge of research at Bell Laboratories. Later in his career, he gradually withdrew from front-line research and focused on guiding young scientists. At the same time, he joined a venture capital company to promote the development of technology startups. Maybe you have a lingering fear of childhood displacement, Arnault? Penzias almost never left new york and New Jersey.