Abstract
When Payne-Scott left her position at Danebank School in late 1974, her mental condition was deteriorating. Her conflicts with colleagues at Danebank were possibly due to the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease, which accelerated until her death only 6 years later (1981). She aged rapidly as indicated in the passport photograph taken of her in 1976 before the trip to Europe (see Fig. 15.1). This photo shows an aged individual; her daughter, however, has little memory of her appearing as an old person since the transition occurred rapidly.15 The mental deterioration can also be judged by a letter she wrote to Joan Freeman Jelly (Chap. 11) on 16 February 1976. The letter was to congratulate Freeman on the receipt of the Rutherford Prize. She explained to Freeman that her name was now Ruby Hall, because she had adopted Bill’s surname when the children were born in the 1950s. She wrote about her teaching and was effusive about her children’s successes. At this time Peter was at Oxford working on a D. Phil. in probability theory. Payne-Scott wrote about Fiona: Fiona is our surprise. She is a very good artist and her favourite medium is photography … [she] is now using her savings to explore Europe. The striking aspect of this letter is the poor quality of the handwriting when compared to her handwritten letters and documents of the 1940s and early 1950s. Probably the poor quality of her penmanship can be associated with the mental degradation that was beginning at the age of only 64.
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Notes
- 1.
Fiona Hall had been told by her mother earlier that as she aged she would be able to accept the loss of physical mobility but could not accept any loss of mental faculties.
- 2.
Peter and his mother had discussed the possibility of them taking this train trip together; however, he did the trip by himself on his way to Oxford in 1974.
- 3.
In A Passion for Physics, p. 76.
- 4.
A dissenting point of view has been expressed by Robert Coulson, a War time colleague of Payne-Scott, and a friend of Joan Freeman and Ron Bracewell. He was a managing director of the English Electric Valve Company for some years, responsible for establishing the traveling wave tube section of EEV. Coulson has written that Payne-Scott was a “uniquely difficult person to get close to and rather daunting”. He was impressed by her low tolerance for “non-adherents to her faith [communism]” (email, 21 February 2007). Bracewell and Freeman did not share this negative assessment. B.Y. Mills (email, 23 August 2008) has pointed out that most conservatives at RPL shared Coulson’s view; those who worked with Payne-Scott or knew of her achievements were quite positive in their assessment. On 2 August 1947, Coulson wrote Bracewell a letter to Cambridge (UK) with news from RPL back in Sydney. He wrote about the "R.P. Comrades [communists]" being "constantly vigilant" and was amazed to hear that Payne-Scott was married. He wrote Ron: "Did you know that Ruby is married? Has been for some time? I didn’t." ( From Bracewell archive July 2009.)
- 5.
This feline interest was also shared by the next generation. See Ewington, p. 180.
- 6.
In Appendix C, Jaeger’s contributions to the calibration of the lobe patterns of the LW/AW (later sea-cliff interferometer) system are described. Toward the end of World War II, Jaeger gave a series of lectures on the Laplace transform (usually a transform from the time domain to the frequency domain); this integral transform was commonly used in radar systems. Payne-Scott and Bracewell were enthusiastic attendees at these lectures.
- 7.
During an excursion in the rain, the photo shown in Fig. 15.5 was taken; Payne-Scott and Pawsey stand next to Jaeger, the third from the right and, as was often the case, Payne-Scott is eating.
- 8.
- 9.
Paul Wild invented the name Type III in 1950; Payne-Scott used the term “unpolarized bursts;” Pawsey preferred “isolated bursts.”
- 10.
Reported by John Murray in a letter from 24 January 2004.
- 11.
The detection had been made at Harvard by Ewen and Purcell on 25 March 1951.
- 12.
The other interview was after the conference in the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 August 1952. Much of this interview was a confused discussion with a young woman who was an observing assistant (Pamela White of Glebe) under the direction of Alec Little at Potts Hill; the text about Payne-Scott (also called Mrs. W.H. Hall in the interview) points out that she had been in charge of the Potts Hill station from 1948 to 1951. She now had a 9 month old baby. She and her husband had just built their own house in Oatley, having moved in about August 1951. She and Bill had ceased being active in the Sydney Bush Walkers. She and her husband did discuss the PMG’s ‘new methods. But I know absolutely nothing about telephones.”
- 13.
These conclusions are based on discussions with Peter Hall, 12 February 2007.
- 14.
Hooker, p. 166.
References
Ewington J (2005) Fiona Hall. Piper Press, Sydney
Paterson MS (1982) John Conrad Jaeger 1907–1979. Hist Rec Aust Sci 5:64
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(2010). The End of Payne-Scott’s Life: A Retrospective. 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_15
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