American radio astronomer, Nobel laureate in Physics (1978) for the joint discovery with Arno Penzias of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which became a key piece of evidence for the Big Bang theory.
Biography
He studied at Rice University and the California Institute of Technology. He worked at Bell Laboratories, where together with Penzias, using a horn antenna, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Key discoveries
Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (1965)
💡 Initially, Wilson and Penzias thought that the noise in the antenna was caused by pigeon droppings and spent time cleaning it before realizing the nature of the signal.