Robert Herman

Who was Robert Herman?

Robert Herman was a United States scientist, 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.

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Herman graduated cum laude with special honors in physics from the City College of New York in 1935, and in 1940 was awarded master's and doctoral degrees in physics from Princeton University in the area of molecular spectroscopy. 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. He spent the academic year 1940-41 working on the Bush differential analyzer at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, and another year teaching physics at the City College of New York.

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.