Abstract
John Paul Wild’s (1923–2008) major achievements include the original frequency spectrum classifications and his investigation of solar radio bursts. Also described are his development of instruments, including the radioheliograph, as well as his later career as chairman of the CSIRO.
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Notes
- 1.
Zeeman effect: splitting a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field.
- 2.
Special mathematical functions with applications to physical optics. The common notation for the function is the letter “J”.
- 3.
Of the five main spectral types of solar radio bursts, the Type IV was the only one not introduced by Wild’s group. This classification came from a prominent solar physicist in France, A. Boischot, in 1957.
- 4.
Prominent examples that Paul Wild presented at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Sydney in 1973 were (1) the size of the sources of metre wave solar bursts and the associated intensities, (2) the opposite polarisation of emission from the two footpoints of the radio emission associated with sunspots, (3) the apparent source heights and the importance of scattering and ducting due to the solar corona, (4) radio evidence on the coronal magnetic field and (5) radio evidence on coronal mass ejections.
- 5.
Paul Wild was the subject of a long-running barroom tale – see Appendix B.
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Frater, R.H., Goss, W.M., Wendt, H.W. (2017). Paul Wild: Radio Astronomy and the Sun. In: Four Pillars of Radio Astronomy: Mills, Christiansen, Wild, Bracewell. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65599-4_5
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