Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy

by Woodruff T. Sullivan, III

• ISBN13: 9780521765244
• ISBN10: 0521765242
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-12-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Providing a definitive history of the formative years of radio astronomy, this book is invaluable for historians of science, scientists and engineers. The whole of worldwide radio and radar astronomy is covered, beginning with the discoveries by Jansky and Reber of cosmic noise before World War II, through the wartime detections of solar noise, the discovery of radio stars, lunar and meteor radiation experiments, the detection of the hydrogen spectral line, to the discoveries of Hey, Ryle, Lovell and Pawsey in the decade following the war, revealing an entirely different sky from that of visual astronomy. Using contemporary literature, correspondence and photographs, the book tells the story of the people who shaped the intellectual, technical, and social aspects of the field now known as radio astronomy. The book features quotes from over a hundred interviews with pioneering radio astronomers, giving fascinating insights into the development of radio astronomy.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Searching for solar hertzian waves

Jansky and his star static

Grote Reber: science in your backyard

Wartime discovery of the radio sun

Hey's army group after the war

Radiophysics laboratory, Sydney

Ryle's group at the Cavendish

Lovell at Jodrell Bank

Other radio astronomy groups before 1952

Meteor radar

Reaching for the moon

The radio sun

Radio stars

Theories of galactic noise

The 21-cm hydrogen line

New astronomers

A new astronomy

Appendixes

References

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.