Abstract
As we know, much of Payne-Scott’s professional life in 1948 was taken up with diligently observing solar bursts at the Hornsby Valley site to determine the nature and even validity of the time delays between detection of different frequencies from the bursts. Concurrent with those 9 months of careful observation, plans were being put in motion for the creation of the swept-lobe interferometer at the new Potts Hill location, a level and more spacious site.
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- 1.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/7.
- 2.
NAA; C3830, B2/2, Part 1. The PC minutes of 23 September 1947 contain a thorough discussion of a new solar interferometer for a new field station at Bankstown-Sydney. As had been the experience at Dover Heights, this site initially had problems with robbery and vandalism. By April 1948, the location was moved to Potts Hill Reservoir. At that time Payne-Scott was in charge of the project. The new instrument was to be “capable of yielding interference patterns in a fraction of a second with a view to extending this technique to bursts”.
- 3.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/7
- 4.
An example was the eclipse of 1 November 1948 observed in eastern Australia.
- 5.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/7.
- 6.
With the completed instrument, this observation was difficult due to limited sensitivity. The quiet sun has a total flux density of about 2 × 104 Jy at 100 MHz; the flux density sensitivity of the interferometer was a few thousand Jy for observations of a few hours and only a few hundred thousand Jy for the sub second observations. In addition the fringe size of about 40 arcmin was comparable to the size of the radio quiet sun of 40–50 arcmin; thus the interferometer response to the quiet sun was quite attenuated since the sun was “over-resolved”.
- 7.
The report by F. Graham-Smith was not published until 4 years later under the title, “The Determination of the Position of a Radio Star”, Smith 1952.
- 8.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1 Part 4. The report “Notes on Interferometer Errors” (Payne-Scott and Mills 1949) was enclosed in the letter to Ratcliffe.
- 9.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1 Part 4.
- 10.
NAA: C4659, 8.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
In the 6 June 1948 letter, McCready also seemed to blame himself for the conflicts which he had been unable to resolve. The excuses for the imbroglio were (1) Payne-Scott was very keen to start the new Potts Hill project and (2) the work at Hornsby was going nowhere. Even Bowen had suggested that she “fold it up and get into something more profitable”. As explained in Chap. 9, the pessimism about the Hornsby endeavours eventually was shown to be unjustified. NAA: C4659, 8.
- 13.
NAA: C4659.
- 14.
Ibid. The history of the site selection and some aspects of the scientific research programs at the Potts Hill site were described by Frank L. Kerr (1918–2000) in the January 1953 issue of the Sydney Water Board Journal(Sullivan archive) Although by this date, the swept-lobe interferometer was no longer in use, the determination of solar noise positions from active regions was described in detail. The opening sentence of the article (Kerr 1953b) was: “In 1948, the Chief of the Division of Radiophysics at C.S.I.R.O., Dr. E.G. Bowen, sought and the Board was pleased to grant, permission for the Division to install certain equipment on the Board’s land at Potts Hill for the investigation of solar radio activity… The Board has been very happy to have been able to provide the Division with the space and other activities needed.”
- 15.
NAA: C4659, 8; 6 June 1946.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
This house was actually started in 1950–1951, with major construction done by Payne-Scott and her husband. Bill and Ruby Hall (she started to use her married name when she retired in 1951) moved to the new house in August 1951.
- 18.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 1.
- 19.
Wendt (2008) has provided a detailed description of the various projects carried out at Potts Hill in the years 1948–1962.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
The change of name has been described in Chap. 9. As discussed by Sullivan (2009), the first use of the term radio astronomy was by Pawsey in January 1948 in a letter and by Ryle in April 1948 at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (he did use the term inside inverted commas, however). Ryle wrote: “More refined observations in this new ‘radio astronomy’ should provide us with much new information on such processes.” The new term for this expanding research field caught on quickly.
- 22.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 1.
- 23.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 2.
- 24.
At this meeting, Mills and Thomas announced the results of their first Cygnus A position determinations. Discrepancies were found with both Bolton’s and Ryle’s previously determined positions. At the next meeting on 7 July 1949, Mills announced that he was giving up on the Potts Hill interferometer for cosmic source positional determinations due to the limited sensitivity. The flux density of Cygnus A at 100 MHz was observed to be 15,000 Jy with a measured uncertainty of 3,000 Jy. In 1951, he and Thomas published the Cygnus A position, followed by a refinement by Mills (1952) with an error 0.5 by 1.5 arcmin; even with this small error rectangle the optical object eluded a definitive detection. The optical identification was only made by Baade and Minkowski (1954) based on the more accurate position determined by Smith (1951). It is striking that the position determined earlier by Mills and Thomas was quite close to the more accurate determination made by Smith.
- 25.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 2.
- 26.
- 27.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 2.
- 28.
Ibid. Payne-Scott’s preferred term was “unpolarized”.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
The “M” provides the distinction for Type IVM outbursts in contrast to the stationary component of Type IV continuum. The latter term includes all continuum emission (in the metre, decimetre and centimetre regions) produced during a flare event.
- 31.
RPP 135. The first draft was prepared on 10 August 1950 (close to the cessation of data taking) and the complete manuscript was sent to the Australian Journal of Scientific Research Series A-Physical Sciences on 28 June 1951. RPP 136 was paper II in the series and prepared and submitted a week later. The papers appeared back to back in the December 1951 journal on pages 489–525.
- 32.
It is likely that the publication by Little and Payne-Scott contained the first published recognition that atmospheric refraction can be neglected (to first order) for a conventional Michelson interferometer. For a plane parallel atmosphere, the equality of the phase change in both arms of the interferometer leads to a cancelation of the effect : “A uniform plane sheet of refractive material does not introduce any differential path difference between parallel rays, and hence the refraction due to an uniformly stratified regions above a plane Earth can be ignored…”
- 33.
NAA: C3830, B2/2, Part 2, Radio Astronomy Committee of 18 July 1951: All three papers in the series had been submitted.
- 34.
Sullivan (2009) in Chap. 14, “The Radio Sun”, discusses the thermal theory proposed by Ryle to explain solar bursts. The problem was that a fatal flaw was incorporated into the theory; he had assumed that the collision cross sections and rates of emission for the high temperatures of the solar corona were the same as the earth’s ionosphere at a modest temperature of only 300 K.
- 35.
The magnetoionic theory deals with the propagation of waves in a cold magnetised plasma; two solutions of the equations are possible, the ordinary and extraordinary. For the ordinary mode, the electric field accelerates parallel to the magnetic field, while for the extraordinary mode the acceleration is perpendicular to the magnetic field. For the ordinary wave the magnetic field has no influence on the motions of the electrons, while for the extraordinary wave the motions of the electrons are modified.
- 36.
Stewart (1985) has pointed out that in the years 1966–1980 the Culgoora Radioheliograph only recorded 56 Type IVM bursts, in comparison to 560 Type II events. The stationary components of Type IV events are associated with non-storm, flare-related continuum emission (Robinson 1985). Indeed the Type IV class is confusing!
- 37.
The radiation had the characteristics of a smooth continuum, consistent with the gyro-synchrotron theory. However, a number of problems existed with the model. Stewart (1985) has summarised the pros and cons of the gyro-synchrotron model; a major problem was the presence of substantial circular polarization. He suggested a hybrid model consisting of second-harmonic plasma emission followed by gyro-synchrotron emission. On the other hand, Smerd and Dulk (1971) made a strong case for gyro-synchrotron emission.
- 38.
1968 Pawsey Lecture presented by J.P. Wild in Brisbane Australia, 30 April 1968 (Wild 1968).
- 39.
Based on several interviews from 2 July 2003 and 21 February 2007 together with correspondence from 2003 to 2007 with Dr. Rachel Makinson and her son, Robert (Bob) Makinson.
- 40.
Roughly half of the signatories were from RPL with the other half from the Division of Physics. The RPL signatories included Payne-Scott, H. Minnett (a future Chief of RPL), J. P. Wild (a future Chief of RPL and future Chairman of CSIRO from 1978 to 1985), Cooper, Adderley, Humphries, McCready, Warner, Alec Little, Marie Clark, Hindman, Christiansen, Smerd, Yabsley, Coulson, and Labrum.
- 41.
Letter to McGee, 14 October 1998. In addition, Bob and Christa Younger wrote Goss 15 March 1999 that they knew Bill and Ruby during WWII in the Sydney Bush Walkers. The teen agers were “reluctant to inquire into the lives of Bill and Ruby, being aware of the reasons for their secrecy in relation to their employment and association with the Communist Party of Australia”.
- 42.
At the time of the dissolution of the CPA in 1991, the assets of the party were transferred to the Social Education and Research Concerning Humanity (SEARCH) Foundation.
- 43.
Clunies Ross succeeded Sir David Rivett. Previously he had been Director of Scientific Personnel in the Commonwealth Directorate of Manpower after a career in the field of veterinary medicine at both the University of Sydney and the CSIR starting in 1926. See the biography of Ian Clunies Ross by Marjory Collard O’Dea (1997). Clunies Ross is described as one of the major architects of the post-war scientific revolution in Australia.
- 44.
Rachel Makinson has confirmed that a personal meeting between Clunies Ross and Payne-Scott occurred. Makinson, letter 23 January 2010 to Goss. Clunies Ross had visited RPL for a meeting with professional staff. Payne-Scott told Makinson that she reported to Clunies Ross: “Oh, by the way, did you know that I am married?” Payne-Scott did not provide any other details to Makinson.
- 45.
In interviews with Goss in August 2003 and February 2007, Rachel Makinson stated that her similar treatment as a “temporary” at the CSIRO Division of Textile Physics in the years 1953–1982 was quite demoralising.
- 46.
See footnote 4, chapter 8.
- 47.
A memo which accompanied the recommendation for promotion lists eight publications and describes her work and that of A. G. Little on the Potts Hill interferometer in detail: “[It] allows the movement of the sources of radio energy emitted at times of solar flares…to be followed through the solar atmosphere…. Results of great interest and importance are being obtained.”
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Goss, W.M. (2013). 1949–1951: Radio Astronomy Blossoms as a Field, but Ruby Must Resign from the Radiophysics Laboratory. In: Making Waves. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35752-7_10
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