Archives:50th Anniversary of the New Jersey Coast Section
The 50th Anniversary of the Section was commemorated at a dinner at the Colts Neck Inn, Colts Neck, New Jersey. Highlights included a Keynote presentation by IEEE New Jersey Coast Section Nobel Laureate, Dr Robert W Wilson.
Keynote by Dr Robert W. Wilson Nobel Laureate – Senior Scientist, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Recently, Dr Wilson was technical leader of the Sub-Millimeter Array radio telescope. His early work at Bell Labs was in the field of Galactic radio astronomy and precision measurement of radio source strengths. He is best known for his part in the 1964 discovery of the cosmic background radiation thought to have originated in the early stages of the big bang. He helped to extend radio spectroscopy to short millimeter wavelengths discovering interstellar molecules including Carbon Monoxide. Molecular astronomy has increased our knowledge of how stars form out of interstellar gas. While at Bell Labs, he measured earth-space propagation for satellite communication, made infrared propagation measurements, and worked in wireless communications and optical networking.
He is co-recipient of the Henry Draper Medal from the U.S. National Academy of Science and the Herschel Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, London and the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics. Dr Wilson received a BA from Rice University in 1957 and a PhD from California Institute of Technology in 1962.
