Dicke, Robert (born 6.05.1916) is an American physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1967). Born in St Louis. Graduated from Princeton (1939) and Rochester (1941) universities. In 1941–46 he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1946 he has been at Princeton University (professor from 1957).
His work is in the field of relativity, gravitation, cosmology, astrophysics, atomic spectroscopy, quantum physics, radiophysics and quantum electronics. In 1961 he developed the scalar–tensor theory of gravitation (the Brans–Dicke theory) and showed its connection with general relativity. He put forward the hypothesis that the gravitational constant changes with time. In 1964 he carried out an experiment to prove the validity of the principle of equivalence — the equality of inertial and gravitational mass — to an accuracy of 10-11. He measured the shape of the Sun to an accuracy better than 10 , and detected its oblateness. He gave a quantitative estimate of the shift of the perihelion of Mercury predicted by general relativity. In 1976 he tested the principle of equivalence by laser ranging of the Moon. In 1946 he invented the radiometer and was the first to measure the radio emission from the Moon at a wavelength of 1.25 cm. In 1954 he predicted the superradiance of atomic systems in a coherent state (Dicke superradiance).
In 1953 he observed optical pumping (independently of A. Kastler). In 1958, independently of A. M. Prokhorov and A. Schawlow, he proposed the open resonator for achieving quantum generation in the infrared region of the spectrum. Together with his co-workers he tried to detect the cosmic microwave background radiation and came close to discovering it. He carried out a number of important experiments on the spectrum and the isotropy of this radiation.
The B. Rumford Medal (1967), the National Medal of Science (1970), the NASA medal (1973) and others.