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The launch of the book Four Pillars of Radio Astronomy, by
Frater, Goss and Wendt, was held at the University of Sydney last
Friday. The book describes itself as "... the story of Bernie Mills,
Chris Christiansen, Paul Wild and Ron Bracewell, members of a team of
radio astronomers that would lead Australia, and the world, into this
new field of research. Each of the four is remembered for his
remarkable work: Mills for the development the cross type instrument
that now bears his name; Christiansen for the application of
rotational synthesis techniques; Wild for the masterful joining of
observations and theory to elicit the nature of the solar atmosphere;
Bracewell for his contribution to imaging theory. As well, these Four
Pillars are remembered for creating a remarkable environment for
scientific discovery and for influencing the careers of future
generations. Their pursuit of basic science helped pave the way for
technological developments in areas ranging from Wi-Fi to sonar to
medical imaging to air navigation, and for underpinning the
foundations of modern cosmology and astrophysics."
The program for the book launch included a number of presentations,
the first of which was from Bob Frater, pictured above, whose
concise definition of the four pillars was that they provided
the foundations of imaging radioastronomy in Australia.
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