Arno Penzias

1933 - 2024

Arno Penzias
April 26, 1933 - January 22, 2024
Arno Penzias, celebrated with the Nobel Prize in Physics for confirming the Big Bang Theory, died peacefully January 22, in San Francisco from complications due to Alzheimer's. He was 90 years old.
Arno was born to a Jewish family in Munich in the middle of the Nazi regime. Justine and Karl Penzias sent six-year old Arno and his five year old brother, Gunter, on the Kindertransport to safety in England. Reunited with his parents, the family moved to New York City. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School and after graduating from the City College of New York, obtained his Ph.D. in physics at Columbia University.
Arno worked for Bell Laboratories for 36 years. While working on early communication satellites, he and his colleague, Robert Wilson, made their discovery using the Horn Antenna, now a dedicated Historical Landmark in New Jersey. For over a year they diligently searched for the origin of the mysterious noise they encountered. Other scientists had heard this noise before but they dismissed them. Only after eliminating all possible sources-noise from New York City, echo of a nuclear bomb test from years ago, even, most famously, removing pigeons living in the telescope as a possible source. they announced to the world they had found a noise "not coming from any source on the earth." For this discovery they received the Nobel Prize in 1978.
After another groundbreaking discovery detecting dozens of types of interstellar molecules, he eventually became the director of research and development for Bell Labs. During a meeting with Steve Jobs asked Penzias, "Why are you still here when there is so much technological innovation happening in Silicon Valley?" Soon he moved to San Francisco and joined New Enterprise Associates, one of the largest venture capital firms. There he continued helping shape new ideas and bring them to fruition.
In the scientific world, Arno was a rock star who many believed had made the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century; but to family and friends he was so much more than an icon. Arno was known for his playful humor, piercing wit, deep intelligence, and quirky personality. At Bell Labs he was renowned for giving colleagues red T-shirts saying, This is the way the world began, not with a whimper but with a BANG, inverting T.S. Eliot's famous concluding line in his poem "The Hollow Men". He enjoyed skiing, hiking, swimming, running, woodworking, the San Francisco Symphony and watching the diving pelicans from his home in Stinson Beach. He will be remembered for being a devoted humanitarian, a compassionate, kind, energetic, warm, generous and fiercely independent friend.
He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Sherry Levit Penzias. He is also survived by his first wife, Anne Barras and their children, David Penzias and wife, Bonnie; daughters, Mindy Dirks and husband, Patrick, and Rabbi Shifra Weiss-Penzias and husband, Peter; as well as two stepchildren, Carson Levit and wife, Suzanne, and Victoria Zaroff and husband, Jonathan; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren; and his brother, Gunter Penzias.
A family service has been held.