abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (07/03/84)
As mentioned in the previous article by P. Wyant, Dicke has studied the question of non-sphericalness of the sun. To add to this, I point out that research by Dicke's Princeton group on the subject of what is known now as "solar oblateness" has continued at least until recently. The interested parties may consult the Science Citation Index for references under the names of Dicke, R., Kuhn, J., and Libbrecht, K. The latter two are former graduate students of Dicke, now faculty, I believe, at Princeton and Caltech respectively. Incidentally, Bob Dicke is probably the most accomplished physicist alive who has not received the Nobel Prize in Physics. He has had remarkable achievements both as a theorist and as an experimentalist, in areas of physics both incredibly applied and equally pure. His early work at the MIT Radiation Laboratory during WWII (the lab which developed radar) is amply detailed in the famous MIT Radiation Lab series of books, now out of print, but among the most referenced out-of-print works in physical science. The series comprises all original work on microwave circuitry, detection by semiconductor devices, microwave tubes, etc., as developed for the war effort. Dicke is also known as the founder of Princeton Applied Research corporation, which is now a subsidiary of EG&G, Inc. He started PAR with his invention of the Lock-in Amplifier. Dicke extended his microwave achievements to create the "Dicke radiometer" which enables the most sensitive possible measurements of microwave radiation and is used to this day in frontier experiments to determine the physics of the famous 3-degree "isotropic" background radiation of the universe, now accepted as being the remaining heat left over from the big bang which started the universe, now distributed over the entire universe and considerably cooler. I put the term "isotropic" in quotes because current measurements of the anisotropy indicate movement of the earth and the solar system through the 3-degree background radiation. These measurements also depend on the Dicke radiometer. In fact, Dicke's historically verifiable involvement with the discovery of the 3-degree background radiation led many to expect that he would be among those to receive any Nobel Prize given for it. As you know, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson did receive the Nobel Prize for their experimental observation of a then-unexplained extra-galactic microwave signal during the early sixties. As mentioned in the previous article, Dicke also developed what is known as the Brans-Dicke theory which is an alternative to the particular form chosen by Einstein for the formulation of his General Theory of Relativity, but which at the time predicted identical experimental results to the Einsteinian formulation. Today the consensus indeed is that the Einstein formulation, which is more elegant and intuitive, is correct. Nevertheless, the importance of this work is not to be understated. Finally, Dicke is responsible for the building up of experimental physics other than nuclear and particle physics at Princeton through his strong influence on the department over many years; a listing of the other projects which have been associated with him would be impossible here. --J. H. Abeles Bell Communications Research, Inc. Murray Hill, NJ