born Jan. 10, 1936, Houston, Texas, U.S.
U.S. radio astronomer.
He joined Bell Laboratories in 1963 and headed its Radio Physics Research Department (197694). With his colleague Arno Penzias , he detected the cosmic background radiation , a discovery for which the two men shared a 1978 Nobel Prize (with Pyotr Kapitsa [18941984], who was honoured for research unrelated to theirs).