Ten Nobels for the future

Arno Allan Penzias was born in Munich, Germany, in 1933, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the City College of New York. After serving in the US Army Signal Corps, he attended Columbia University where he received his master's and doctorate degrees in physics. He began his scientific career in 1961 when he joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff. He conducted research in radio communication and took part in the pioneering Echo and Telstar(r) communications satellite experiments.

As a scientist, Penzias is best known for his work in radio astronomy, especially his discovery of evidence supporting the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Having transformed a horn-shaped antenna into a uniquely sensitive radio telescope, he and Robert Wilson detected the faint, left-over glow of the universe's fiery origin, the 3-degree cosmic background radiation. This discovery grounded the Big Bang theory on scientific observation, started radically new developments in astrophysics and cosmology, and earned them the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Over the last 30 years, Arno Penzias held a series of managerial positions in AT&T Bell Laboratories Research organization: in 1969 he was promoted to supervisor of the technical staff. In 1972, he became head of Radio Physics Research and, in 1976, director of the Radio Research Lab. Shortly after the Nobel Prize, he was elevated to executive director of the Communications Sciences Research Division, and in 1981 he was appointed vice president of Research, a position which he held for the next fourteen years. In 1995, he became vice president and chief scientist, a position which continued when Bell Labs split from AT&T in 1996 and became part of Lucent.

He has officially retired at the beginning of 1998. However, he continues to work for Bell Labs as a senior technology advisor and plays an active role in Silicon Valley's venture capital community, where he serves as an advisor and board member to several emerging companies.

He has written extensively on information technology and its impact on business and society (see in particular Ideas and Information, W.W. Norton 1989). In his most recent book, Digital Harmony: Business,Technology and Life After Paperwork (Harper Collins, 1995) he charts the course of the information revolution and its likely impact on the future of our work environment.

Penzias has received an impressive array of honorary degrees and awards for his contributions to science, R&D management and public service. His affiliations include membership in the US Academies of Sciences and of Engineering, as well as a number of advisory panels and management boards. He is a Vice Chairman of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, a US organization devoted to working for the political freedom of scientists in various countries.

1996
Networking
in the coming century:
prospects and pitfalls

1998
Ten predictions
for future
tecnologies