Abstract
The year of Joe Pawsey’s absence from RPL—25 September 1947 to 29 October 1948—was both frustrating and encouraging for Ruby Payne-Scott. There is evidence that without Pawsey there to manage the group’s personality conflicts as well as guide their scientific research, a low level of needless chaos ensued. Even so, Payne-Scott used the time productively.
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Notes
- 1.
This group (Solar Noise Group) met seven times from June 1947 to April 1948.
- 2.
Correspondence with Christiansen, Mills, Wild and Bracewell 1999–2005.
- 3.
NAA: C3830,.A1/1/1, Part 1. The letter from Ryle to Pawsey has not been found.
- 4.
Marie Couts Clark’s career has been summarised by Hooker (2004); a contemporary of Payne-Scott, she graduated in physics at the University of Sydney in 1932. As Payne-Scott had done, Clark worked for a short period at AWA after teaching at a school. Clark functioned as an assistant, helping Payne-Scott at Dover Heights and later at Hornsby. Clark left RPL in July 1950. John Murray (letter, 26 January 2004) has provided additional details of Clark’s role at RPL.
- 5.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/5.
- 6.
The text read: “Dr. Pawsey told members that during his absence he believed and expected that the research could carry on without appointing a deputy. Dr. Bowen would be in charge and would keep in fairly close touch with the work. To avoid burdening him with unnecessary details, Messrs. Lehany and McCready, as senior officers of the Group, were requested to keep Dr. Bowen informed of events by meeting at suitable intervals and co-opting other Group members whenever considered necessary.” The project to investigate the spectral analysis of solar noise was discussed. The personnel mentioned were McCready and Medhurst (part-time) “until he leaves, then new man”. This new man was probably Paul Wild, who joined this project in 1948. There is a note that this new instrument represented a “common interest with Ruby Payne-Scott’s time delay experiments… Should be available to extend Ruby’s results”.
- 7.
Ruby was strong-minded, forthright and made her opinions known, on both scientific topics and daily discussions of current news. Slee reported that she “did not suffer fools lightly” and the rivalries with Stanley, as well as with John Bolton, were intense. She did not give in but held her own. An unfortunate incident took place in this period which is reported by Kellermann et al. (2005) in their description of the life and career of Gordon Stanley. Stanley painted “Men Only” on the only toilet door. Payne-Scott was not intimidated, however; she just ignored the sign and went into the toilet, laughing. In later years Payne-Scott’s colleagues recognised her brilliance. In a letter to Goss (9 October 1997), Stanley wrote, “She was part of my early education on women’s issues, and despite early insensitivities on my part, I grew to have a great respect and liking for her”.
- 8.
Her colleague Robert Coulson did not share this opinion about an open-minded nature (email 21 February 2007 to Goss), see below.
- 9.
Based on an interview with Bernard and Crys Mills in Roseville (Sydney) on 1 April 2007 and letter to Goss, 14 September 1997.
- 10.
Based on a recorded statement of 17 min’ duration on 17 February 1999, an interview in August 2003, and letters from Lyn Brown and Fred Brown (27 November 2007 and 4 December 2007).
- 11.
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, but those who worked with Payne-Scott or knew of her achievements were quite positive in their assessment.
- 12.
At least some fraction of Bolton’s solar noise work on the circular polarization of bursts and outbursts was later published by Pawsey in his review paper of 1950.
- 13.
The Cygnus A ‘radio star’ had been detected in Australia on 17 June 1947 and additional observations were made in July, August and September. During this period, Virgo A (although then called Coma Berenices A) and Centaurus A were discovered.
- 14.
NAA: C3830, F1/4/PAW/1, Part1.
- 15.
An additional fact that may have reduced the day-to-day tension was that Bolton and Bowen had worked out a deal in early 1948 in which Bolton was to stop future solar work: “It does not appear practical to continue with any observatory work [probably implying that the group would occasionally observe the sun for testing purposes] on solar radiation.” On 1 February 1948 Bolton wrote a long letter to Pawsey at the Embassy in Washington: “Bowen has given me permission to give up on the sun—at any rate just regard it as another source—and concentrate on the galactic source problem. I intend to go into solar evolution and atmospherics and see if I can find a home for my 100 Mc stars.” (NAA: C4659, 8). Pawsey wrote back on 18 February 1948 and agreed with the fait accompli: “… am entirely in favour of your concentrating on the galactic work [radio stars]. The astronomers in the U.S. are waiting in a body on your results—so go to it”.
- 16.
NAA:C4659, 8.
- 17.
In early August 1948, a report was written by McCready to send to Pawsey in the UK “Proposed Publications of Radio Astronomy Group (Dr. Pawsey’s Group)”. The report listed 17 publications under way. Paper No. 11, “Correlation of Solar Noise Intensity with Sun’s Rotation”, by Payne-Scott and Clark, remains a mystery. This proposed publication for Nature never appeared; the claim was made that “analysis should be complete in 6 weeks and 1st draft ready in 8 weeks”. Perhaps the friction between the two colleagues prevented the completion of this project. No other information about this project has been found.
- 18.
NAA: C3830, F1/4/PAW/1, Part1.
- 19.
From an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Hall, 1999.
- 20.
NAA: C4659, 8.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
There were some other interesting pieces of news in the letter. Ruby thanked Pawsey for some contributions to her postcard collection. She told Pawsey that Owen Emery (from Mt. Stromlo and the Radio Research Board—RRB) had tuberculosis. She said she had seen Bernard Mills who was making good progress, having also had tuberculosis. At this time, Pawsey had been in the UK for about 5 weeks. It is striking that neither Payne-Scott nor Bolton mentioned their mutual conflicts of 1947–48 in any of their letters to Pawsey while he was overseas.
- 23.
NAA: C4659, 8.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
NAA: C4659, 8. On 9 June 1948 McCready wrote Pawsey in London an enthusiastic report about Payne-Scott’s reaction on receipt of the 29 May 1948 handwritten letter. “Her reaction was as I anticipated viz she still wants to keep interferometry. Nevertheless, I sowed a few seeds but I doubt whether they will be fertile unless you add [some fertiliser?] in a subsequent letter.”
- 26.
At this meeting, Westfold gave a report on “Solar Noise (Theory)”; he described “…what happens to the radiation … after a burst has been produced … The magneto-ionic theory has been worked out for the case of a non-uniform distribution of ion density with height, and the results applied to solar bursts. By measuring the rate of decay of bursts and knowing the [radiofrequency] of the observations, it is possible to calculate the collision frequency at a given electron density”.
- 27.
NAA: C3830, F1/4/PAW/1, Part 2. In addition her doubt was also expressed in the unofficial (handwritten) letter of 19 May 1949: “[I have] never seen anything like this [the 4 min delays for various frequencies during the outbursts] since. There is the possibility that it has a bad interpretation.”
- 28.
Martyn (NAA: C3830, D5/4/62 from Sullivan archive) was most impressed by the circular polarization data at 85 MHz as shown in a letter of 4 January 1949 to Bowen in Sydney. This new data “cuts across the line that Bolton and I [Martyn] had planned to do, notably on the building up of polarization on the various frequencies as a spot develops with a view to the special study of the origin of bursts and general level”. (Martyn’s emphasis). Martyn was convinced that polarization was the key to solving this problem. He wrote: “Miss Payne-Scott has made a very good job of doing it … the main thing is that someone has done it, and we [Bolton and Martyn] can get on now to something else. I presume that Bolton too is quite happy. We shall certainly have to revise our ideas about what we should do now.”
- 29.
NAA: C3830, F1/4/PAW/1, Part 2.
- 30.
Interview with Graham-Smith by Goss at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, 19 May 2008. Professor Sir Francis Graham-Smith was Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (1976–1981) and later Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester (1981–1988).
- 31.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1, Part 3.
- 32.
Email exchange with John Baldwin to Goss, July 2010.
- 33.
In pencil at the bottom is a note by Pawsey: “Reply when copy of Ruby’s paper available.”
- 34.
Pawsey and his wife Lenore had been away from the three young children (ages 11, 9 and 3 in 1948) for over a year. The two grandmothers (from Canada and Melbourne) had looked after Stuart, Margaret and Hastings in the Vaucluse (Sydney) home.
- 35.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1, Part 3. Eight days later, on 17 December 1948, Pawsey wrote to Ratcliffe. (See above.) There was some confusion concerning who would answer whom! Pawsey wrote to Ratcliffe concerning the “investigation of bursts”; he had delayed writing until Payne-Scott’s paper was available. The paper was to be ready in a few days and then he would send a copy to Ratcliffe. Probably Pawsey was not aware that Payne-Scott had previously sent a draft to Ryle. Pawsey also wrote that Payne-Scott had included some theoretical speculations concerning the origin of bursts in the new paper (the comparison with the Westfold theory).
- 36.
Chapter 9 and Appendix D in Under the Radar.
- 37.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1, Part 5.
- 38.
Interview 10 November 1997.
- 39.
NAA: C3830, A1/1/1, Part 3. A personal note was added by Pawsey: “I sent you a food parcel a couple of weeks ago and I hope you receive it by Christmas. Wishing you and your family the compliments of the season.” All correspondence between them was on a familiar basis, beginning either “Dear Jack” or “Dear Joe”, in contrast to most other correspondence, such as that between Ryle and Pawsey, which began “Dear Pawsey” or “Dear Ryle”.
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Goss, W.M. (2013). 1948: Hornsby Field Station: Daily Observations. In: Making Waves. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35752-7_9
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