Physicists and astronomy—Will you join the dance?

NOV 01, 1981

Observational discovery comes on the heels of technological innovation, giving physics an increasingly dominant role in astronomy

DOI: 10.1063/1.2914355

Martin Harwit

Twenty‐five years ago when I was a graduate student in physics, I was drafted into the Army and sent to Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. There was plenty of spare reading time for an army private on this tiny atoll, and I had taken along a paperback copy of Fred Hoyle’s Frontiers of Astronomy. Hoyle made astronomy exciting and I began to wonder whether I might find a way to enter the field.

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References

1. M. Harwit, Cosmic Discovery—The Search, Scope and Heritage of Astronomy, Basic, New York (1981) documents much of the material presented here.
2. G. Kirchhoff, R. Bunsen, Philosophical Magazine 4th Series 20, 89 (1860).
3. W. and Lady Huggins, eds., The Scientific Papers of Sir William Huggins, William Wesley & Son, London (1909), pages 5–6. Excerpted from The Nineteenth Century Review, June 1897.
4. W. Huggins, Philosophica Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 154, 437 (1864).
5. M. Harwit, ibid, page 16.
6. M. Harwit, ibid, page 18.
7. M. Harwit, ibid, page 170.
8. National Academy of Sciences, Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970’s—Volume 1. Report of the Astronomy Survey Committee, Washington, D.C. (1972), pages 55–60. The committee that prepared this document was chaired by J. L. Greenstein of the California Institute of Technology.
9. E. A. Ohm, Bell Syst. Tech. J. 40, 1065 (1961).https://doi.org/BSTJAN
10. W. C. Jakes, Jr., Bell Syst. Tech. J. 42, 1424 (1963). https://doi.org/BSTJAN
I am indebted to J. R. Pierce for forwarding to me a copy of a letter to him by David C. Hogg, dated 3 January 1979.
Hogg, a participant of this project carried out at a 4 GHz frequency, calls attention to the roughly 2.5‐kelvin discrepancy between the measured noise of 17 K and all other calculated sources of noise, roughly 14.5 K, which included the by‐then‐known atmospheric contribution, as well as instrumental noise contributions.
11. A. A. Penzias, R. W. Wilson, Astrophys. J. 142, 414 (1965).https://doi.org/ASJOAB
12. R. H. Dicke, P. J. E. Peebles, P. G. Roll, D. T. Wilkinson, Astrophys. J 142, 414 (1965).
13. G. Gamow, Phys. Rev. 70, 572 (1946).https://doi.org/PHRVAO
14. R. A. Alpher, R. C. Herman, Phys. Rev. 75, 1089 (1949).https://doi.org/PHRVAO
15. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, chapter 10: refrain from the Mock Turtle’s song for the Lobster Quadrille.

More about the Authors

Martin Harwit. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.