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'''Robert Henry Dicke''' (1916-1997) was one of the most accomplished American-born [[physicist]]s and experimental physicists in history.  He made significant contributions to [[radar]], atomic physics, [[cosmology]], quantum optics, gravity physics, and astrophysics. Like the great British physicist [[Fred Hoyle]], Dicke paid a heavy price for criticizing a theory favored by [[liberals]] (in the case of Dicke, he criticized the [[Theory of Relativity]]; in the case of Hoyle, he criticized the [[theory of evolution]]):

'''Robert Henry Dicke''' (1916-1997) was one of the most accomplished American-born [[physicist]]s and experimental physicists in history.  He made significant contributions to [[radar]], atomic physics, [[cosmology]], quantum optics, gravity physics, and astrophysics. Though Dicke was one of the greatest Armerican physicists, he was never awarded the Nobel Prize.

 

:'''''Dicke was denied a Nobel Prize despite being the greatest American physicist ever.'''''

A tribute by his colleagues, Princeton Professors W. Happer, P. J. E. Peebles, and D. T. Wilkinson, summed up Professor Dicke's career as follows:<ref>http://bob.nap.edu/html/biomems/rdicke.html (emphasis added).</ref>

A tribute by his colleagues, Princeton Professors W. Happer, P. J. E. Peebles, and D. T. Wilkinson, summed up Professor Dicke's career as follows:<ref>http://bob.nap.edu/html/biomems/rdicke.html (emphasis added).</ref>

==The Brans-Dicke Theory of Gravitation==

==The Brans-Dicke Theory of Gravitation==

While Dicke accepted [[Theory of Relativity|Relativity]], both special and general, he believed that plain General Relativity did not fully explain gravity.  Along with his former student Carl Brans, he formulated the Brans-Dicke theory, which includes a scalar field in addition to the tensor field defined by general relativity.  This "scalar-tensor theory" (as opposed to plain relativity, which is just a "tensor theory") included a scalar field, usually denoted &omega;, which, when assigned a certain value, they believed matched experimental data better.  (When &omega; is set to infinity, the Brans-Dicke theory becomes equivalent to plain General Relativity.)  Brans and Dicke suggested a value of about 5.  The observable differences between Brans-Dicke and general relativity are extremely tiny.

While Dicke accepted [[Theory of Relativity|Relativity]], both special and general, he believed that plain General Relativity did not fully explain gravity.  Along with his former student Carl Brans, he formulated the Brans-Dicke theory, which includes a scalar field in addition to the tensor field defined by general relativity.  This "scalar-tensor theory" (as opposed to plain relativity, which is just a "tensor theory") included a scalar field, usually denoted &omega;, which, when assigned a certain value, they believed matched experimental data better.  (When &omega; is set to infinity, the Brans-Dicke theory becomes equivalent to plain General Relativity.)  Brans and Dicke suggested a value of about 5.  The observable differences between Brans-Dicke and general relativity are extremely tiny, but the Mariner and Cassini spacecraft (below) clearly detected this<ref name="exper">Multiple references:

 

 

The Brans-Dicke gravitation theory turned out to be wrong, as did Fred Hoyle's "steady state creation" theory.  But both men made other groundbreaking contributions.  It's possible that Dicke's name was more closely associated with the Brans-Dicke theory than with his invention of the lock-in amplifier, his work devising tests of relativity (including the test that refuted Brans-Dicke), and his insights into the Big Bang theory and the cosmic background radiation.  Also, Nobel prizes are not often awarded for inventions, even if they had far-reaching consequences, such as the 2014 prize for the blue light-emitting diode.

Dicke was instrumental in proposing extremely sensitive tests of General Relativity.  Modern measurements of the various tests, specifically from Mariner 6 spacecraft in 1969, and the Cassini spacecraft in 2004, show that plain Einsteinian relativity, not the Brans-Dicke theory, agrees with observation.<ref>http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943324,00.html</ref> <ref>http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/70s/release_1970_0566.html</ref> <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=9ZuP9JQzc00C&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=brans-dicke%2Bmariner&source=bl&ots=Y2jhf2OjcU&sig=C8qWD1E5ukCe_5DiKObCiWjAEKg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cCw9VcfBE8HksASynoHICw&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=brans-dicke%2Bmariner&f=false The Rise and Fall of the Brans-Dicke Theory]</ref>  Nevertheless, interest in the Brans-Dicke formulation has recently revived, in the context of dark matter / dark energy investigations.

See [http://www.conservapedia.com/Nobel_Prize#Criteria the discussion of Nobel Prize criteria] for further discussion of this topic.

==Biography==

==Biography==

Dicke was born on May 6, 1916 in St. Louis, [[Montana]]. He received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1939, as well as a doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1941. In the same year he became a staff scientist at the radiation laboratory of MIT. In 1975 he was appointed Albert Einstein professor of science and nine years later he became emeritus professor.<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/162137/Robert-H-Dicke</ref>

Dicke was born on May 6, 1916 in St. Louis, [[Montana]]. He received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1939, as well as a doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1941. In the same year he became a staff scientist at the radiation laboratory of MIT. In 1975 he was appointed Albert Einstein professor of science and nine years later he became emeritus professor.<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/162137/Robert-H-Dicke</ref>

Dicke's work was closely related to that of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who first measured the [[cosmic background radiation]], though Dicke was the theorist who explained it<ref>http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/butowsky5/astro4k.htm and http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/9404/dicke.html</ref>.  The 1978 [[Nobel Prize]] for Physics was awarded to Penzias and Wilson, but not Dicke, for this work.  Some people think that this was unfair, and that Dicke should also have won the Nobel Prize for any of his many other achievements also (such as his laser work).

Dicke's work was closely related to that of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who first measured the [[cosmic background radiation]], though Dicke was the theorist who explained it<ref>http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/9404/dicke.html</ref>.  The 1978 [[Nobel Prize]] for Physics was awarded to Penzias and Wilson, but not Dicke, for this work.  Some people think that this was unfair, and that Dicke should also have won the Nobel Prize for any of his many other achievements also (such as his laser work).

== References ==

== References ==