Robert Herman (August 29, 1914 – February 13, 1997) was an American astronomer, best known for his work with Ralph Alpher in 1948–50, on estimating the temperature of cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang explosion.
As a graduate student, Herman already exhibited eclectic tendencies in diverse fields by also working in solid state physics, as well as straddling theory and experiment.
In 1942, he left teaching to work at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., and the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, all research centers for the war effort.
He shifted his attention from theory and laboratory work and became deeply involved with field testing of the proximity device and the operational problems associated with its use in the fleet.
In 1964, the radiation was accidentally detected by two scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, while trying to correct a malfunction in a radio dish.
The Big Bang model for the origin of the universe became widely accepted, and in 1978 a Nobel Prize was awarded to Bell scientists Penzias and Wilson for their detection of the cosmic background radiation.
"[2] They also received the Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society, the John Price Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute, and the Georges Vanderlinden Prix of the Belgian Royal Academy.
In 1956, Herman joined the General Motors Research Laboratory, as head of the basic science group, later renamed the theoretical physics department.