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Richard Barnes
The Holmdel Horn Antenna was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988 for its role in establishing the Big Bang theory. For Penzias, his discovery had greater, even cosmic, significance. “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life,” he wrote. “In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”
Six-year-old Arno Penzias stands between his parents in this photograph that was shown to Barnet Yudin in 1938. Yudin would never know that the young boy he helped save would one day win the Nobel Prize (facsimile at left).
Guenther “Jimmy” Penzias (foreground) was four years old when he and brother Arno reached safety in England as part of a British rescue effort called the Kindertransport. In 2012, Arno’s son David Penzias (background) discovered a copy of the affidavit signed by Barnet Yudin, which until then had remained a secret.
Sydney Neuwirth, a retired artist and Barnet Yudin’s granddaughter, says her grandfather was moved to help the Penzias family because “he knew what it was like to be turned down, turned away.”
Barnet Yudin (left) fled Russia for the U.S. in 1906, sold paint from a pushcart, and eventually opened this paint shop in Bellville, New Jersey. According to his affidavit of support, his income was $125 a week.
Barnet Yudin (second from right) and his family pose for a portrait in 1929. In 1938, on the eve of World War II, Barnet signed an affidavit of support for the Penzias family, agreeing to meet their financial needs if necessary and clearing the way for the refugees he never met to escape Nazi Germany.
Penzias and fellow radio astronomer Robert Wilson made their famous discovery using the Holmdel Horn Antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. An etched glass cube of the horn-shaped instrument commemorates the 50th anniversary of their discovery.
A coffered linen bundle conceals an ibis.
Papyrus and linen trace the contours of a gazelle.