Abstract
Payne-Scott experienced a postscript to her career as a radio astronomer in August 1952, 13 months after her resignation which had occurred a few months before the birth of her son, Peter Hall, in November 1951 (Chap. 4). The first international congress to be held in Australia had been the Second Pan-Pacific Science Congress almost 30 years earlier, in August 1920, in Melbourne and Sydney.1 One of the first international congresses, however, that had ever been held outside the US and Europe, the tenth URSI (International Scientific Radio Union) General Assembly, took place at the University of Sydney from 11 to 21 August 1952.2 On 22 and 23 August there was an official visit to Canberra where Sir Edward Appleton gave another lecture. Figure 10.1 shows the arrival in Sydney by ship (the P&O RMS Strathmore ) of Appleton, the URSI President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh (third from left) being welcomed by the Australian hosts. From the left the others were D.F. Martyn from the Radio Research Board, Canberra (URSI Vice President and Chair of Commission V, Radio Astronomy), Colonel E. Herbays (Brussels, Secretary of URSI), E.G. Bowen (RP Chief), and J.L. Pawsey (RP Assistant Chief). Many of the European guests had spent more than a month on board ship across the Indian Ocean. Brian Robinson (2002) has suggested that many of the delegates to the conference must have spent many days in discussions during the trip to Sydney.3 Many well known overseas guests attended the Assembly, including Sydney Chapman from Oxford, J. Ratcliffe from Cambridge, B. van der Pol from Geneva (CCIR, the International Radio Consultative Committee), A.H. de Voogt from The Hague, M.L. Oliphant from the Australian National University in Canberra, S. Silver from the University of California, Berkeley, C.R. Burrows of Cornell, John Dellinger of RCA in the US, and Sir John Madsen of Sydney University (also Chair of the Australian Organising Committee). About sixty overseas delegates from thirteen countries were in attendance as well as more than 250 Australian attendees; the conference included toursof Sydney, the local beaches, a harbour cruise and an excursion to Wollongong on the South Coast, which included a tour of the Dapto field station. The 2 weekends were spent at Jenolan Caves and the Federal Capital, Canberra (with visits to Mount Stromlo Observatory).
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- 1.
A number of authors pointed out that the URSI Assembly of 1952 was the first international scientific union outside the US or Europe (e.g., Haynes et al. 1996; Robertson 1992). Already in 1950, Professor F.J.M. Stratton (prominent UK astronomer and the Secretary of the International Council of Scientific Unions) asserted that “no Union so far has ever had a meeting outside Europe and the U.S.A.” (NAA: C3830, C6/2/4A, Part 1). However, there had been earlier meetings with an international character in Australia. A meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held in Australia in 1914 at the beginning of World War I (BAAS publication in 1915). This event was a series of lecture tours throughout Australia, with Eddington, Lodge and Rutherford as eminent speakers; the event was essentially British and Australian in character. A more likely candidate for the first international conference in Australia was the second Pan-Pacific Science Congress of 1923, which had more of an international nature with participants from the US, Canada, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, and New Zealand see Hobbs (Science, 1923); the geology of the Pacific was a major topic. A new US warship (the cruiser Milwaukee) was a big attraction at the Sydney meeting, because it had a new sonic depth finder which provided accurate soundings from Seattle to Sydney. The following Pan-Pacific Science Congress was held in Japan in 1926, and the Fourth was held in Batavia (Jakarta), Indonesia in 1929 (see A.M. Goss 2009). Professor Gary Tee of the University of Auckland and Professor W.T. Sullivan, III of the University of Washington have provided numerous comments on this topic.
- 2.
Haynes et al. (1996) have described the Assembly, including the trepidation of the Australian hosts in preparing suitable coffee for the overseas visitors. The circumstances of the Assembly have been reconstructed, based on programs and documentation provided by Bracewell in 2006–2007 and Madam Inge Heleu, Executive Secretary of URSI, in February 2007. McGee was an attendee.
- 3.
In fact, Appleton had been persuaded to give a lecture on board, entitled “The Challenge of Scientific Progress”. His younger daughter, Rosalind, accompanied Appleton and his wife to Australia; Miss Appleton met the purser of the Strathmore on the voyage and they were married later that year in Edinburgh (Clark 1971). During the URSI Assembly, a number of the Sydney newspapers carried articles about the Appleton family (including several on the glamorous Rosalind). On his arrival in Sydney, Appleton was asked by a reporter from The Daily Telegraph about the honorary degree that the University of Sydney was to present to him during his visit. When asked about the number of honorary degrees he had received, he responded, “I don’t know – but I’ve got more degrees than a thermometer” (Bracewell archive, National Radio Astronomy Observatory).
- 4.
Interview with Goss, Palo Alto, California, February 2007. Bracewell gave his only remaining URSI pin to Goss after the interview.
- 5.
In his closing remarks, Appleton confessed that he had only been able to visit the Dapto and Potts Hill field stations. “I am sorry I have not yet been able to visit Dover Heights – which is now an historic site – but I hope to do so before I leave Sydney.” We do not know if he did in fact visit this site.
- 6.
URSI, Proceedings of the General Assembly, Vol. IX, Fascicule 1, Administrative Proceedings 1952, Brussels, p. 9.
- 7.
Former Ambassador to the US during World War II and later Governor General of Australia, 1965 to 1969.
- 8.
Bracewell (1984) (in Sullivan 1984).
- 9.
“Recollections of the URSI Tenth General Assembly, Sydney, Australia, 1952”, The Radio Science Bulletin.
- 10.
Due to continued ill will as a result of WWII, the Germans and Japanese were not invited. Martyn did go to Japan after the Assembly, however, to transmit news of the proceedings (Gillmor 1991). Japan submitted a national report in the published URSI proceedings; Germany did not. Also, as the Cold War had begun, there were no participants from the USSR or other East European countries.
- 11.
Martyn had been responsible for the invitation to URSI to be held in Sydney in 1952.
- 12.
The correspondence for URSI 1952 is from NAA: C3830, C6/2/4B.
- 13.
Apparently these visits to the field stations were organised around detailed briefings by RPL staff. Appleton was present at both of these excursions.
- 14.
Bolton (1953) described the official field trips to Dapto and Potts Hill. The trip to Hornsby is not mentioned, but Bolton did say that “private visits were made to other field stations engaged on galactic work”. Surprisingly there is no record of any trips to Dover Heights; we do not know if Appleton had requested a visit to this “historic site”.
- 15.
21 June 1952.
- 16.
Kerr also had doubts about the status of theory in explaining emission processes in radio sources: “The discussion showed that this is a very difficult subject, and a thorough understanding of the nonthermal processes that are important in radio astronomy is still a long way off.” Indeed the recognition of the importance of synchrotron emission was not to occur until the mid-1950s. The importance of the paper, “Cosmic Radiation and Radio Stars”, by Alfvén and Herlofson, who proposed synchrotron emission, was not recognised in 1952 (see also Chap. 7). Nicolai Herlofson from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden was at the URSI conference in 1952.
- 17.
The RPL photo is dated 8 August 1952, but this date is before the beginning of the Assembly on 11 August. The first session of Commission V (Radio Astronomy) was 13 August 1952.
- 18.
Although Payne-Scott has no pin, she was a registered participant; she appeared in the list of participants with profession “physicist”, address 120 Woronora Parade, Oatley. Her name was listed as “Ruby Payne-Scott (Mrs. W. Hall)”. Only three women were registered for the URSI Assembly.
- 19.
Based on an interview with Sally Atkinson, February 1999, Epping, NSW. For information about Sally Atkinson, see Chap. 5, footnote 7, as well as the Preface. Sylvia Mossom Blackwood (1914–987) worked in the RPL administration during World War II, starting in 1941; she was also an infrequent baby sitter for the Hall family in the 1950s (letter from her husband, Fred Blackwood, July 1999). In the late 1950s, Mossom was a literary assistant to D.P. Mellor as he prepared the influential volume, The Role of Science and Industry, in the series Australia in the War of 1939–945. Series 4, Civil (1958), sponsored by the Australian War Memorial.
- 20.
Payne-Scott did, however, maintain contact for some years with Christiansen and Mills. We do not know if she stayed in touch with Pawsey.
- 21.
From the Sullivan archive.
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(2010). Payne-Scott and URSI, 1952: Her Last Experience as a Radio Astronomer. In: Goss, W.M., McGee, R.X. (eds) Under the Radar. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 363. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03141-0_10
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