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The book Joe Pawsey and the Founding of Australian Radio Astronomy,
subtitled Early Discoveries, from the Sun to the Cosmos
has just been published by Springer as a
open access publication.
This biography of Joseph Pawsey examines his life, and also the
birth and growth of the field of radio astronomy and the state of
science itself in twentieth century Australia.
Pawsey made a name for himself in the international astronomy
community within a decade after WWII and coined the term radio
astronomy. His most valuable talent was his ability to recruit and
support bright young scientists who became the technical and
methodological innovators of the era, building new telescopes from the
(Bernard) Mills Cross and Chris (Christiansen) Cross to the Parkes radio
telescope.
The development of aperture synthesis and the controversy surrounding
the cosmological interpretation of the first major survey which
resulted in the Sydney research group's disagreements with Nobel
laureate Martin Ryle play major roles in this story. This book also
shows the connections among prominent astronomers like Oort,
Minkowski, Baade, Struve, famous scientists in the UK such as
J.A. Ratcliffe, Edward Appleton and Henry Tizard, and the engineers
and physicists in Australia who helped develop the field of radio
astronomy.
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