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Hewish, Antony

(Encyclopedia)Hewish, Antony, 1924–, British astrophysicist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1952. Hewish spent his entire career as a faculty member at Cambridge, retiring in 1989. He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics wit...

Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich

(Encyclopedia)Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich yôsˈĭf səmo͞oēlˈəvĭch shklŏfˈskē [key], 1916–85, Soviet astronomer. He was head of the department of radio-astronomy at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute,...

Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf hĕrts [key], 1857–94, German physicist. He confirmed J. C. Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and in the course of experiments (1886–89) produced and studied electromagnetic...

Penzias, Arno Allan

(Encyclopedia)Penzias, Arno Allan, 1933–, German-American physicist, b. Munich, Germany, Ph.D. Columbia Univ., 1962. He fled Nazi Germany with his family and after finishing school began work at Bell Telephone La...

Terkel, Studs

(Encyclopedia)Terkel, Studs, 1912–2008, American writer, social historian, and radio and television personality, b. the Bronx, N.Y., as Louis Terkel, grad. Univ. of Chicago (Ph.B. 1932, J.D. 1934). Terkel, who mo...

Voice of America

(Encyclopedia)Voice of America, broadcasting service of the United States Information Agency, est. 1942. Originally set up as a means of fighting the cold war, the Voice of America produces and broadcasts radio pro...

Marconi, Guglielmo, Marchese

(Encyclopedia)Marconi, Guglielmo, Marchese go͞olyĕlˈmō märkāˈzā märkôˈnē [key], 1874–1937, Italian physicist, celebrated for his development of wireless telegraphy (see radio). In the field of electro...

SETI

(Encyclopedia)SETI sĕtˈē [key] [Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence], name given to a series of independent programs to detect radio signals from civilizations beyond the solar system. Modern SETI efforts c...

fireball

(Encyclopedia)fireball, very bright meteor leaving a trail in the sky that can remain visible for several minutes; often a distinct sound, perhaps caused by very low frequency radio waves, is associated with it. A ...

microwave

(Encyclopedia)microwave, electromagnetic wave having a frequency range from 1,000 megahertz (MHz) to 300,000 MHz, corresponding to a wavelength range from 300 mm (about 12 in.) to 1 mm (about 0.04 in.). Like light ...