Ralph A. Alpher, Robert C. Herman, and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

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• 作者：Victor S. Alpher (1) alphervs@gmail.com
• 关键词：Ralph A. Alpher &#8211 ; Robert C. Herman &#8211 ; George Gamow &#8211 ; Hans A. Bethe &#8211 ; Luis J. Boya &#8211 ; Subramanyan Chandrasekhar &#8211 ; Robert H. Dicke &#8211 ; Andrei G. Doroshkevich &#8211 ; Martin O. Harwit &#8211 ; Fred Hoyle &#8211 ; Harold I. Ewen &#8211 ; John C. Mather &#8211 ; Igor D. Novikov &#8211 ; P. James E. Peebles &#8211 ; Anro A. Penzias &#8211 ; Edward M. Purcell &#8211 ; George F. Smoot &#8211 ; Rashid Sunyaev &#8211 ; Merle A. Tuve &#8211 ; Steven Weinberg &#8211 ; Robert W. Wil
• 刊名：Physics in Perspective (PIP)
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：September 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：14
• 期：3
• 页码：300-334
• 全文大小：721.6 KB
• 参考文献：1. Ralph A, Alpher and Robert C. Herman, “Early work on ‘big bang’ cosmology and the cosmic blackbody radiation,” in R. Bertotti, R. Babinot, S. Bergia and A. Messina, eds., Modern Cosmology in Retrospect (Cambridge, New York, Port Chester, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 129–157, on p. 129.
  2. Interview of Ralph A. Alpher and Robert C. Herman by Martin Harwit on August 11, 1983, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute of Phyiscs, College Park, MD USA, www.aip.org/history/ohlist/LINK, p. 17 of 78.
  3. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert C. Herman, “Evolution of the Universe,” Nature 162 (November 13, 1948), 774-775; Ralph A. Alpher and Robert C. Herman, “On the Relative Abundance of the Elements,” The Physical Review 74 (1948), 1737-1742.
  4. Ralph A. Alpher, “George Gamow and the Big Bang Model. Part I. Cosmochemistry in the Early Universe,” in E. Harper, W.C. Parke, and G.D. Anderson, ed., The George Gamow Symposium. Sponsored by The George Washington University and the Carnegie Institution of Washington 12 April 1996 (San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1997), pp. 49-68, on p. 53.
  5. James D. Watson, The Double Helix: A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA (New York: Antheneum and London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1968).
  6. Alpher to Bernard Scharfstein, August 25, 1975, Alpher Papers, Estate of Ralph A. Alpher, Victor S. Alpher, Executor; hereafter Alpher Papers.
  7. For a list of the topics and participants at the annual Washington Conferences on Theoretical Physics from 1935-1942 and 1946-1947, see Harper, Parke, and Anderson, George Gamow Symposium (ref. 4), pp. 12-15.
  8. Ralph A. Alpher, curriculum vitae, Alpher Papers.
  9. R.A. Alpher, H. Bethe, and G. Gamow, “The Origin of Chemical Elements,” Phys. Rev. 73 (1948), 803-804; see also Victor S. Alpher, “The History of Cosmology as I have Lived Through It. Part 3,” Radiations (Spring 2009), 8-18, website <http://www.sigmapisigma.org/radiations/2009/alpher_part3.pdff>.
  10. R.A. Alpher, “A Neutron-Capture Theory of the Formation and Relative Abundance of the Elements,” Phys. Rev. 74 (1948), 1577-1589; for comments on the large value of the CMBR, see Michael S. Turner, “From αβγ to precision cosmology: The amazing legacy of a wrong paper,” Physics Today 61 (December 2008), 8-9.
  11. P. Balaram, “The mores of publishing in science,” Current Science 83 (2002), 1429-1430; Paul R. Halmos, “‘Nicolas Bourbaki’,” Scientific American 196 (May 1957), 88-91, 93-94, 96, 99.
  12. S. Chandrasekhar and Louis R. Henrich, “An Attempt to Interpret the Relative Abundances of the Elements and Their Isotopes,” The Astrophysical Journal 95 (1942), 288-298.
  13. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert C. Herman, “Theory of the Origin and Relative Abundance Distribution of the Elements,” Reviews of Modern Physics 22 (1950), 153-212.
  14. Interview of Ralph A. Alpher by Martin Harwit on August 11, 1983, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, http://www.aip.org/history.ohlist/LINK, pp. 21-22 of 36.
  15. G. Gamow, “Concerning the origin of chemical elements,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 32 (December 15, 1942), 353-355.
  16. Alpher interview (ref. 14), p. 22 of 36.
  17. A.A. Penzias and R.W. Wilson, “A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s,” Astrophys. J. 142 (1965), 419-421.
  18. Helge Kragh, “The Construction of Cosmology as a Physical Science,” unpublished paper presented at the History of Astronomy Workshop, Notre Dame University, July 6, 2001; title only at website <http://www.nd.edu/~histast/workshops/2001ndv/index.shtml>.
  19. Stephen G. Brush, “How Cosmology Became a Science,” Scientific American 267 (August 1992), 62-65, 68-70.
  20. Virginia Trimble, “Early photons from the early universe,” New Astronomy Reviews 50 (2006), 844-849.
  21. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert Herman, Genesis of the Big Bang (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
  22. R.H. Dicke, P.J.E. Peebles, P.G. Roll, and D.T. Wilkinson, “Cosmic Black-Body Radiation,” Astrophys. J. 142 (1965), 414-419; see also P.G. Roll and David T. Wilkinson, “Cosmic Background Radiation at 3.2 cm--Support for Cosmic Black-Body Radiation,” Physical Review Letters 16 (1966), 405-407.
  23. Alpher and Herman, “Evolution of the Universe” (ref. 3).
  24. Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow, “Origin of Chemical Elements” (ref. 9).
  25. Gamow to Bethe, April 15, 1948, Alpher Papers.
  26. Alpher “Neutron-Capture Theory” (ref. 10).
  27. Alpher and Herman, “On the Relative Abundance” (ref. 3); they first announced their CMBR of 5oK in “Evolution of the Universe” (ref. 3).
  28. Alpher interview (ref. 14), pp. 23-24 of 36.
  29. Alpher-Herman interview (ref. 2), pp. 21-22 of 78.
  30. Ibid., pp. 31-32 of 78.
  31. Ibid., pp. 33-34 of 78.
  32. Alpher and Herman, Genesis of the Big Bang (ref. 21), pp. 121-122.
  33. Alfred Behr, “Zur Entfernungsskala der extragalaktischen Nebel,” Astronomische Nachrichten 279 (1951), 97-104.
  34. Trimble, “Early photons” (ref. 20), p. 846.
  35. Ralph A. Alpher, George Gamow, and Robert Herman, “Thermal Cosmic Radiation and the Formation of Protogalaxies,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 58 (1967), 2179-2186.
  36. Walter S. Adams, “Some Results with the Coud茅 Spectrograph of the Mount Wilson Observatory, Astrophys. J. 93 (1941), 11-23; Andrew McKellar, “Evidence for the Molecular Origin of Some Hitherto Unidentified Interstellar Lines,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 52 (1940), 187-192.
  37. G. Gamow, “The Physics of the Expanding Universe,” Vistas in Astronomy 2 (1956), 1726-1732, on 1731.
  38. Ralph A. Alpher, “Talk to Science Writers at the American Physical Society” (1983), Alpher Papers.
  39. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert Herman, “Remembrance of Things Past: Some Recollections of the Development of the Big Bang Model,” in Behram N. Kursunoglu and Arnold Perlmutter, ed., Unified Symmetry in the Small and in the Large (Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1994), pp. 3-54. A long list of their talks and colloquia between 1948 and 1955 is in the Alpher Papers.
  40. “Proceedings of the Philosophical Society,” October 11, 1947, to May 22, 1948. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 38, No. 8 (August 15, 1948), 283-288.
  41. V.S. Alpher, “The Mark 9 Torpedo Exploder Mechanism: A Contact-Influence Successor to the Mark 14 Mod 6 During WWII,” The Submarine Review (October 2009), 117-133; idem, “Torpedo Exploder Mechanisms of World War II: A New Perspective,” ibid. (April 2010), 83-105; idem, “Degaussing Policy in World War II (Part I),” ibid. (October 2010), 57-70; idem, (Part II), ibid. (January 2011), 93-105.
  42. Ralph B. Baldwin, personal communication, January 16, 2009; see also Ralph B. Baldwin, The Deadly Fuze: Secret Weapon of World War II (San Rafael, California: Presidio Press, 1980), p. 203; idem, They Never Knew What Hit Them: The Story of the Best Kept Secret of World War II (Naples, Florida: Reynier Press, 1999).
  43. Benjamin K. Malphrus, The History of Radio Astronomy and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Evolution Toward Big Science (Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 1996), pp. 25-26. For a broader perspective, see Woodruff T. Sullivan, III, ed., The early years of radio astronomy: Reflections fifty years after Jansky’s discovery (Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1984); idem, Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S茫o Paulo, Dehli: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
  44. J.P. Hagan, A.E. Lilley, and E.F. McClain, “Absorption of 21-cm Radiation by Interstellar Hydrogen,” Astrophys. J. 122 (1955), 361-375 + 2 plates.
  45. Alpher-Herman interview (ref. 2), p. 24 of 78.
  46. “Notes,” Radio astronomy conference, Washington, D.C. [January 4-6, 1954], Journal of Geophysical Research 59 (1954), 140; “Radio Astronomy Conference,” Science 119 (April 30, 1954), 588-591.
  47. James B. Comly, personal telephone conversation, January 11, 2012.
  48. “Radio Astronomy Conference” (ref. 46).
  49. H.I. Ewen and E.M. Purcell, “Observation of a Line in the Galactic Radio Spectrum,” Nature 168 (1951), 356; see also John S. Rigden, “Edward Mills Purcell, August 30, 1912-March 7, 1997,” Physics in Perspective 13 (2011), 91-103, on 97-98.
  50. J.A. Giordmaine, “Centimeter Wavelength Radio Astronomy including Observations using the Maser,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 46 (March 15, 1960), 267-276, on 267.
  51. Ibid., p. 268.
  52. R.H. Dicke, “The Measurement of Thermal Radiation at Microwave Frequencies,” The Review of Scientific Instruments 17 (1946), 268-275; Robert H. Dicke, Robert Beringer, Robert L. Kyhl, and A.B. Vane, “Atmospheric Absorption Measurements with a Microwave Radiometer,” Phys. Rev. 70 (1946), 340-348.
  53. Trimble, “Early photons” (ref. 20), p. 646.
  54. A.E. Salamonovich, “The First Steps of Soviet Radio Astronomy,” in Sullivan, early years (ref. 43), pp. 268-288.
  55. Luis J. Boya, “La Prediccion de la Radiacion Cosmica de Fondo,” LLULL: Boletin de la Sociedad Espa帽ola de las Ciencias 16 (1993), 5-21.
  56. Alpher and Herman to Boya, April 13, 1995, Alpher Papers.
  57. Ibid.
  58. Interview of P.J.E. Peebles by Martin Harwit on September 27, 1984, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD, USA, <http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4814.html>. Interview with David Wilkinson by Martin Harwit on September 27, 1984, ibid., <http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4967.html>. Interview with Robert Dicke by Martin Harwit, June 18, 1985, ibid., <www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4572.html>. All quoted by permission.
  59. Interview of Peebles (ref. 58), p. 23 of 109.
  60. R.W. Wilson, “Two astronomical discoveries,” in P. James E. Peebles, Lyman A Page, Jr., and R. Bruce Partridge, ed., Finding the Big Bang (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S茫o Paulo, Dehli: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 157-176, on p. 173. For much more, see Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 318-388.
  61. Interview with Edward Purcell by Katherine R. Sopka, June 8, 1977, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD, USA, <www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4835_1,html>, pp. 35-36 of 50. Quoted by permission.
  62. Alpher-Herman interview (ref. 2), p. 38 of 78.
  63. P. James E. Peebles, “How I learned physical cosmology,” in Peebles, Page, and Partridge, Finding the Big Bang (ref. 60), pp. 185-200, on p. 192.
  64. R.H. Dicke and P.J. Peebles, “Gravitation and Space Science,” Space Science Reviews 4 (1965), 419-460.
  65. Peebles, “How I learned physical cosmology” (ref. 63), p. 192.
  66. Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson, “Cosmic Black-Body Radiation” (ref. 22).
  67. Alpher and Herman, “On the Relative Abundance” (ref. 3).
  68. Peebles, “How I learned physical cosmology” (ref. 63), p. 192.
  69. Peebles, Page, and Partridge, Finding the Big Bang (ref. 60), p. 530.
  70. Helge Kragh, Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 215, n. 51.
  71. J.J. Holley, Technical Employment Manager of The Glenn L. Martin Company, to Alpher, August 20, 1955, Alpher Papers.
  72. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert Herman, “Big Bang Cosmology and the Cosmic Black-Body Radiation,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119 (1975) 325-348.
  73. Robert Herman, “George Gamow and the Big Bang Model. Part II. The Prediction of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation,” in Harper, Parke, and Anderson, George Gamow Symposium (ref. 4), pp. 71-83, especially pp. 72-73.
  74. James A. Van Allen, “My Life at APL,” Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 18 (1997), 173-177.
  75. Donald White, personal communication, November 18, 2011. Alpher and Freeman K. Hill translated, for the U.S. government, the first text on supersonics, Robert Sauer’s Theoretishe Einf眉hrung in die Gasdynamik (Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1943). See also The First Forty Years: A Pictorial Account of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Since its Founding in 1942 (Baltimore: Schneidereith & Sons, 1983) and William K. Klingaman, APL—Fifty Years of Service to the Nation: A History of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Laurel, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 1993).
  76. Ralph A. Alpher and Donald R. White, “Optical Refractivity of High-Temperature Gases. I. Effects Resulting From Dissociation of Diatonic Gases,” Physics of Fluids 2 (1959), 153-161; idem, “Optical Interferometry in Plasma Diagnostics,” Report No. 64-RL-3627C, April 1964, General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, NY: Research Information Section, The Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Alpher Papers.
  77. R.A. Alpher, “On Using Optical Masers to Measure Electron Concentration,” Memo Report, General Electric Research Laboratory, No. C-61-188, November 1961, ibid., pp. 1, 11-12, Alpher Papers.
  78. P. Cannon, and R.A. Alpher, “On the Use of the M枚ssbauer Effect at Very High Pressures,” Memo Report, General Electric Research Laboratory, No. C-62-5, January 1962, ibid.
  79. R.A. Alpher, “Suggested Experiments for Solar Orbiting Vehicle,” Memo Report, General Electric Research Laboratory, No. MO-0700C, July 1963; idem, “Cosmological Experiments Aboard Voyager Spacecraft,” Memo Report, General Electric Research Laboratory, No. MO-0697C, July 1963, ibid.
  80. Alpher, “Suggested Experiments” (ref. 79), p. 2.
  81. Alpher, “Cosmological Experiments” (ref. 79), p. 1.
  82. C. Guy Suits, Speaking of Research (New York, London, Sydney: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), especially pp. 15-25.
  83. R.J. Gould and G.R. Burbidge, “X-Rays from the Galactic Center, External Galaxies, and the Intergalactic Medium,” Astrophys. J. 138 (1963), 969-977.
  84. E. Margaret Burbidge, G.R. Burbidge, William A. Fowler, and F. Hoyle, “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars,” Rev. Mod. Phys. 29 (1957), 547-650 + 4 plates.
  85. Vera C. Rubin, “What George Gamow Did Not Know about the Universe (Dec. 29, 1996),” in Harper, Parke, and Anderson, George Gamow Symposium (ref. 4), pp. 96-101, on p. 98.
  86. Ralph Alpher, et al., “Action Plan for Space Science” (January 18, 1967), Alpher Papers.
  87. James A. Van Allen, ed., Scientific Uses of Earth Satellites (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1956), especially pp. v-vi.
  88. Igor Dmitrievich Novikov, “Cosmology in the Soviet Union in the 1960s,” in Peebles, Page, and Partridge, Finding the Big Bang (ref. 60), pp. 99-106; Andrei Georgievich Doroshkevich, “Cosmology in the 1960s,” in ibid., pp. 107-108; Rashid Sunyaev, “When We Were Young…,” in ibid., pp. 108-132.
  89. A.G. Doroshkevich and I.D. Novikov, “Mean Density of Radiation in the Metagalaxy and Certain Problems in Relativistic Cosmology,” Soviet Physics Doklady 9, No. 2 (August 1964), 111-113.
  90. Sunyaev, “When We Were Young…,” (ref. 88), p. 112.
  91. Ibid.
  92. Novikov, “Cosmology in the Soviet Union in the 1960s” (ref. 88), p. 103; Arno A. Penzias, “The origin of the elements,”Rev. Mod. Phys. 51 (1979), 425-431, on 430.
  93. Doroshkevich and Novikov, “Mean Density of Radiation” (ref. 89), p. 113.
  94. Victor S. Alpher, “Ralph A. Alpher, George A. Gamow, and the Prediction of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation” (2009), website <www.physics-online.ru/php/paper.phtml?jrnid=null&paperid=6847&option_lang=eng>. Regarding A.D. Chernin’s erroneous attribution of Alpher and Herman’s work to Gamow, see Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy (ref. 60), p. 416, n. 143; for other recent erroneous attributions, see Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), pp. 39-41, and Doroshkevich, “Cosmology in the 1960s” (ref. 88), p. 107.
  95. Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 122-132; idem, Cosmology (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 102-103, 159-160, n. 1.
  96. Robert K. Merton, “The Matthew Effect in Science,” Science 159 (January 5, 1968), 56-63; idem, “The Matthew Effect in Science, II. Cumulative Advantage and the Symbolism of Intellectual Property,” Isis 79 (1988), 606-623; Alexander M. Peterson, Woo-Sung Jung, Jae-Suk Yang, and H. Eugene Stanley, “Quantitative and empirical demonstration of the Matthew effect in a study of career longevity,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 108 (January 4, 2011), 18-23.
  97. Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy (ref. 60), p. xi.
  98. Kragh to V. Alpher, August 2 and 16, 2009: I note that Kragh, in his Higher Speculations (ref. 70), has five index entries to Gamow in the text but none to Alpher or to Alpher and Herman.
  99. Ralph A. Alpher and Robert Herman, “Calculation of Cosmological Parameters and Their Approximations in the Standard Big Bang Model,” in Behram N. Kursunoglu, Stephen Mintz, and Arnold Perlmutter, Unified Symmetry In the Small and in the Large 2 (New York and London: Plenum Press, 1995). pp. 53-86.
  100. Ibid., p. 83.
  101. Robert W. Wilson, personal communications, July 27, 2007, September 11, 2007, and January 16, 2012.
  102. Roger H. Stuewer, “Gamow, Alpha Decay, and the Liquid-Drop Model of the Nucleus,” in George Gamow Symposium (ref. 4), pp. 30-43, on p. 35.
  103. Alan Lightman and Roberta Brawer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 17.
  104. John C. Mather, “Nobel Lecture: From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and beyond,” Rev. Mod. Phys. 79 (2007), 1331-1348, on 1333.
  105. Ibid., p. 1341.
  106. Ibid., pp. 1337-1340; John C. Mather, “Infrared Measurements from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE),” Infrared Physics and Technology 35 (1994), 331-336.
  107. Erica Westly, “No Nobel for You: Top 10 Nobel Snubs,” Scientific American online (October 6, 2008), website <www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=10-nobel-snubs>.
  108. Neil deGrasse Tyson, personal communication, July 26, 2007.
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文摘

Much of the literature on the history of the prediction and discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) is incorrect in some respects. I focus on the early history of the CMBR, from its prediction in 1948 to its measurement in 1964, basing my discussion on the published literature, the private papers of Ralph A. Alpher, and interviews with several of the major figures involved in the prediction and measurement of the CMBR. I show that the early prediction of the CMBR continues to be widely misunderstood.