Interview with A. C. Bernard Lovell

Begin Tape 76B

Sullivan

This is continuing with Sir Bernard Lovell on 1^st September 1976. I wanted to ask you, when was the date of the three-station method and so forth? The question I asked you was when did you become aware, and you never actually gave a date that the meteor radar had more or less run its course.

Lovell

I can’t remember the date exactly, but you’ll find this in the literature. I think it was in the early 1950’s. The papers may not have been published, I don’t believe all the work ever was published. Incidentally, some of those problems raised by Davies’ work is still unsolved.

Sullivan

Really?

Lovell

Why, the short period orbits of meteors are distributed in a very off way around the ecliptic. They’re bunched at angles – about 60°. I was asking Whipple the other day, and he says there’s no solution to it.

Sullivan

So what did you see then as being the new areas in which the big dish could really contribute?

Lovell

I think by the time it came in use in 1957 we were – the situation had moved to such an extent that we, even at that time, regarded its main use as the study of galactic and extragalactic emissions. Although, of course, they were only at that time just beginning to be realized as extragalactic. We felt that other uses proposed for it began to assume a rather minor role. Although you must remember that the particular way in which the big dish came into use was quite unusual, in that it was associated with the carrier rocket of Sputnik.

Sullivan

What do you mean the way it came into operation?

Lovell

Ah, because the first thing we used it for was for something for which had never been intended, the tracking of the Sputnik. This may not have been considered very important scientifically, but it as of immense importance politically. If you read the story, you’ll find that it kept me out of prison, in the end, it was that one factor. After all, for a short time, it was the only telescope, radar instrument in the world which had this capability.

Sullivan

So that you’re quite convinced that this put a good light on Jodrell Bank? It would have been hard to do otherwise?

Lovell

Absolutely, it would have been impossible. The antipathy, public and private, to me and to what was commonly regarded as the mess I’d made of building the telescope, was minor over expenditure, which was being used as a political weapon to gain control of the University. Suddenly, overnight, for reason for which I never understood – nevertheless it happened, the public interest was so immense that this antipathy just switched. The impact was colossal. We have enormous press conferences two or three times a day. And suddenly the government found itself faced with this. (laughter) The point is there was no solution, but to determine a solution had to be found. And the solution to these appalling difficulties was found. Certainly, what a wonderful moment it must have been when the dish began to work. On the contrary, it was the moment when I wished, I think more than any other time, that the earth would open and swallow me. Because there was this irony of having produced this instrument which was doing far more than we ever thought it would do, and yet faced all these problems. I’m glad to say I did take the trouble to document that. So the dates and so on are all there for you to read. The relevance is this gave us a continuity of interests in using the instrument as a radar device, as well as … So we then did quite a lot of radar work on the moon. Very important work, you’ll find. And on the planets. Of course, on our planetary radar, we soon we began to miss out in the face of the Americans because the Americans were able to put immense money into their transmitters.

Sullivan

Computing power perhaps also?

Lovell

Not so much computing power at that time. I didn’t always have the (?) on the computer situation. But certainly expensive transmitters. It was very odd because the ability to send spacecraft to the planets made it necessary to settle the problem of the solar parallax. And this meant that both the Russians and the Americans simply had to do the radar work. So there was this outside impetus which pushed them into doing this. And we realized, I think pretty soon, that we were just there at the time of determination of the solar parallax and the rotation of Venus. But then it was no good going on.

Sullivan

So are you saying that in the mid-50’s that radar was not part of the program intended for the big dish?

Lovell

Oh, yes, it sure was. Oh, very much so.

Sullivan

Oh, it was?

Lovell

Yes.

Sullivan

Sputnik just gave it a tremendous boost?

Lovell

Sputnik gave it a tremendous boost. Yes, and I’ll just give you a reason why Sputnik gave this additional boost to the continuity of our radar interests, and there are many, many publications in the first ten years of the use of the telescope in which you will find it uses the radar.

Sullivan

Oh, that I know, but what I was trying to get at, in the mid-50s were you intending to use it as a radar?

Lovell

Oh, yes. I must send you the “blue book” because that was our bible, so to speak, on the things we were going to do. You’ll find it very elementary now, the thing was written 30 years ago.

Sullivan

Was it the excitement and the importance of the Sputnik to you personally and to Jodrell Bank scientifically that really got you into the whole space business? You know, where you began to track other space objects and get pictures from the moon before the Russians did, and this sort of thing. Was this what got you there? What was your philosophy in going in that direction?

Lovell

It is really awfully difficult now to give more facts than those I have already published. But there is one comment I would make. It is that long before there was any talk of Sputnik (and I think you will find this in the “blue book” which I am going to send you), there was a proposal that we would use the telescope in conjunction with Vanguard to do ionospheric work in relation to the moon. I think that was published, but I used to talk to Hagen about this and therefore the possibility of earth satellites in relation to use of the telescope was certainly envisaged by me long before the announcement of the Sputnik. And what was your other question?

Sullivan

I was just wondering -

Lovell

Well, the other thing, of course -

Sullivan

You’ve been very much into space, assigned space shots -

Lovell

The history of that, you will also find, was very important because the Americans, before NASA was created, when the United States Air Force were the launching agency concerned with this, they enlisted our assistance in tracking their first Pioneer spacecraft, this new series of Pioneers is another matter, but the original Pioneers, one to five or something like that, we were the main tracking station. American had no big telescope. So that’s how we became very deeply involved.

Sullivan

Right, but it’s a possible scenario that you would have said, “No, we do radio astronomy research here - ”

Lovell

I’m not the sort of person to ask that. I had too much feeling for the importance of this space work. Another person, another director, could have done, but he would have been extremely foolish in my view. It never entered my head that I would not do my best to collaborate. And then similar with the Russians. I mean, the Russians also sought our assistance. Our passage with the Russians have been sometimes smooth and sometimes rough, but we’ve always – I’m a great believer in international collaboration and I’ve always done my best to collaborate. We responded to their request and whenever we’ve been able to help – the Venus spacecraft, for example – and still do so.

Sullivan

When you say, ‘the importance of the space work,’ are you thinking of the scientific results gained or just the adventure of man leaving earth, or at least his instruments, at first.

Lovell

Both, of course. But after the beginning we were primarily concerned of the scientific results. It’s difficult now, I don’t know how old you are, but probably very considerably younger than I am. Astronomy 30 years ago was a very much more localized subject than it is today. This makes it very difficult for me in a place like this. There are many place I feel I ought to be. One just had this opportunity, people in my age group, especially in the year after World War II, when the possibilities of solution of the major cosmological and cosmogonic problems seem to be so immense, we’d do our best to support any of these activities.

Sullivan

So what you’re saying this gave you a breadth of outlook such that even in the late ‘50s when space science came along, that you would be willing to go into it and not feel yourself confined?

Lovell

Oh, yes, we did. At Jodrell Bank – and, in fact, we still have a group who do experiments with space vehicles. But, of course, more and more, particularly with the financial problems descending on us like everybody else, one has had to concentrate one’s manpower on the use of the major observation of facilities which one has. But this did not apply in the early history that we’re talking about. Late 1950-1960 especially.

Sullivan

I don’t quite follow what you say. What would you like to do if you had more money now that you were unable to do in the past?

Lovell

Well, I think eventually a lot of our things became conditioned by lack of money. After all, we’ve just failed – we’ve spent 15 years reaching a complete design of this major telescope which we’ve now had to abandon, the Mark V. And given more money, we would have probably equipped our telescope with bigger and bigger transmitters and kept in the planetary game.

Sullivan

So what you’re saying is you have to draw in your ranks and concentrate in one area.

Lovell

Yes. You achieve a series of major instruments and you cannot leave those instruments idle.

Sullivan

I see what you’re saying. Whereas before you could just drop it and go to a new one.

Lovell

Yes.

Sullivan

Yes, that is a big difference, indeed. What about the whole question of the relationship to optical astronomy? It’s rather interesting to me. We’ve already talked about the close relation with the meteor astronomers, usually amateur. But in a more general sense, in all of radio astronomy through the 50’s, when do you think that radio astronomers really began to feel themselves as astronomers more than radio physicists?

Lovell

Oh, very, very quickly, I think. We had a series of symposia, or colloquia as you call it now, at Jodrell Bank and I think the first Russian astronomers to come out of the Soviet Union in the late 1940s were those who came to a meeting supposedly in Jodrell Bank. And then we had the next year a “cosmic noise” symposium. So I think very quickly after the War we were integrated with the optical astronomers.

Sullivan

But you were saying there were a lot of optical astronomers at these meetings?

Lovell

Oh yes. Most of them came. And then, you see, we had the fortunate coincidence of the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Dublin in middle 1950. By that time, certainly by the early 1950s, we knew and we were known to the major optical astronomers in the world. And they had come to us, to our colloquia and so on. Those days I used to keep a visitor’s book, and it’s most astonishing to go back through and see how often Minkowski and Baade and people like that came through.

Sullivan

But were they now more the exceptions, though? I mean one can name… was it the average optical astronomer you think just as interested in going to hear a paper, if he had the choice of the IAU in Dublin, on radio astronomy as he would on proper motions?

Lovell

Well, I think you’ve got to remember that radio astronomy by the early 1950s was beginning to hit the astronomical headlines so to speak and therefore astronomers were beginning to feel, to find out what it was all about. I think this might well have been the factor which led them to come. Whatever the reason, the answer to your question is, that, in my opinion, we achieved a very early integration with the optical fraternity. And, of course, in London we were immediately absorbed by the Royal Astronomical Society.

Sullivan

Michel Overden was just telling me that McCrea had a large part to do with that, actively encouraging people to come in.

Lovell

Yes.

Sullivan

I’ve heard many people, though, disagree with that point of view. They say it wasn’t until late ‘50s that optical astronomers did much more than take some interest in the results, but never really try and get involved.

Lovell

It depends upon what you mean by optical.

Sullivan

As a whole.

Lovell

Optical astronomers to me, those that really mattered, were those that had control of the major instruments. If I mention Baade, Minkowski, Ambartsumian, there are three names with whom we had the very earliest contacts and maintained great friendship. After all, in 1957 I was one of the participants in the Solvay Conference on the structure of the Universe. And there was another one, a year or so later, which I think Bolton was there at that time. So that indicates integration.

Sullivan

Yes, that’s true.

Lovell

But, of course, in my own case I was perhaps also fortunate in having been trained as a physicist and perhaps knowing, not now I don’t, but at that time I was still giving lectures on nuclear physics. Please don’t think that I’m claiming any modern nuclear physics, but in those important days I did, and therefore I had contacts. Or already had existing contacts with people like Oppenheimer and so on. And then at the same time began to make these friendships with Minkowksi and Baade.

Sullivan

Were you involved at all in the application of nuclear physics to stellar astrophysics?

Lovell

In what way?

Sullivan

In terms of taking an active interest in meetings, going to talks, that sort of thing.

Lovell

Well, not at that time, you see, because the study of individual stars by radio telescope did not (?) possibilities they do now.

Sullivan

No, but still there were theorists who were working on stellar interiors. That’s what I was trying to get at. Was that an interest of yours also?

Lovell

Those who were working on stellar interiors at that time, Hoyle and Burbidges -

Sullivan

Yes, and Schwarzchild -

Lovell

Were certainly closely associated. After all they were all in England. Burbidges at that time were research fellows in England.

Sullivan

Let me ask about the whole – you mentioned your cooperation with Ryle in terms of financing for telescopes, that it would be foolish for you -

Lovell

Yes, of course we did also collaborate experimentally, too.

Sullivan

This is what I was going to ask. There’s a notable case of the ionospheric scintillations in which you published together. Can you think of other incidences? It seems to me that you more tried to be complementary to each other. Is this true?

Lovell

Yes, that is true. I can’t immediately think of any other joint work, although we did for some time have quite a major array of Ryle’s at Jodrell Bank for some experiments in which observations which one of his group was doing. I can’t remember the details of that. If it was connected with scintillation or not.

Sullivan

Was this complementarity, was this a thing that developed very naturally? Would you say just because of the interests in philosophy that you and Martin Ryle have? Or was it a planned thing that you sat down, and you both had some interests, but you said, “Well, you take that and I’ll take this?”

Lovell

I think we were together in the War and therefore we knew one another pretty well. We were in the same establishment. After the War I think we were old enough to realize that (?) I can’t speak for Ryle, but it’s a philosophy which I very early absorbed from Blackett, that getting money for astronomy or run an experiment, you handled the situation pretty carefully. And the last thing to do is to set yourself up in competition with another national, so to speak. Whether that situation will continue, I do not know. I detect in recent years different attitudes among staff, the young people.

Sullivan

In Great Britain?

Lovell

Well, today I think there is a stronger feeling of competition, which is perhaps understandable.

Sullivan

Let me ask about the flare star business because this is of course very important in the history of radio astronomy. How did this come about that you got interested in flare stars?

Lovell

Oh, yes, well I can answer that one. I think I’ve published the story but not in any book that you’ve got. The answer of course, is that in 1957, just as our telescope was about to come into use, in August 1957, we had a joint symposium on radio astronomy in Paris.

Sullivan

’58.

Lovell

Oh, ’58 was it, yes. Yes, you’re right. At that symposium you will find in there a paper by Schatzman on the possibility of detecting radio emission from certain stars. The telescope by that time was going and I was looking for a new subject which I might do. It is as simple as that. That’s how it began and following, having heard this paper of Schatzman’s, I decided that I could afford to, if necessary, waste a small percentage of time on the telescope on doing experiments which might come up. But there again, you see this is what is now called a philosophy of one’s attitude of mind about these things. And quite frankly, I’m the sort of chap who gets rather disinterested in things as soon as heaps and heaps of other people are working on them. I begin to lose interest. It gets too complicated. I like things that are new. I wanted to start on something new. Well, I was old enough and in the fortunate position that if I wasted 5 or 10 years of my time that I could devote to research and two dozen hours of the telescope it would never matter. I’ve always tried to keep the Jodrell Bank instrumentation of work always on the number of problems that won’t necessarily yield results. Soon as you go on making endless sky surveys, using up year after year of time, endless spectra and all that sort of thing, you just die. So that is a general attitude of mine and the circumstances which led to my work on the flare stars.

Sullivan

I’d be interested to know if you had the notion, what was your predilection towards what all these radio stars, as they were called, really were? Were you really trying to go back and maybe see if they really were stars?

Lovell

No, not at that time.

Sullivan

There had been 20 or 30 identifications with most galaxies by that time. But it still wasn’t clear what all these things were, I don’t think. Ryle had the Bakerian Lecture in which he argued very strongly that -

Lovell

Well, Ryle, yes. He argued that they were -

Sullivan

Extragalactic, in ’58, this is now.

Lovell

In 58’ he did a complete turnaround.

Sullivan

With the 2C survey.

Lovell

Yes, I know. Well, yes, of course, I remember a bitter conflict in the RAS in London a year or so before that, I’m not sure exactly which a violent argument between Gold, Hoyle, and Ryle.

Sullivan

Yes, it’s in the Observatory. What I’m trying to get at is was this flare star thing at all to do with the general problem of the radio sources or were you just - ?

Lovell

No. I had accepted it by that time. (?) the possibility of studying the stars in the same way you wanted to study the sun. This turned out to be very difficult.

Sullivan

Well, but nevertheless, it is proceeding you know with interferometers. Of course Hanbury-Brown has also been doing (?).

Lovell

Well, of course, the Hanbury-Brown development was another matter altogether.

Sullivan

What I’m saying is that – yes, I’ve talked to him at this meeting, as a matter of fact. What you’re saying is this is another aspect where you can study more than just the integrated properties of the stars. You can look at some details.

Lovell

Yes. It’s taken a long time to get going, but it’s difficult. It’s marginally possible with present techniques, or was. But now we -

Sullivan

Can you tell me how you set up the collaboration to the simultaneous optical monitoring and such, how that developed in these first discovery bursts?

Lovell

This came about because of my friendship with Fred Whipple, which itself arose from meteor phenomenon. I cannot remember the exact date but I’ll send you a paper in which that appears. After the Schatzman paper, I started using the telescope for things like I could (?) and looking at one of these stars. And I recorded what happened, I got some results which could possibly have been bursts from the stars, but there was no good publishing it because nobody would believe unless there was a correlation. And at that time, it must have been one of the occasions when I showed these results to Whipple and he said, “Look here I’ve just got this Smithsonian camera network, satellite tracking network, we could do this by collaboration.” So he got Len Solomon onto this. That’s how it all began, and after about a year we were unfortunate in not getting any big individual flares, but we got enough small ones to make it quite certain that emissions occurred. We published this paper. (?) I think that is a joint paper by myself and Whipple.

Sullivan

Yes, exactly, in ’64, I think it was.

Lovell

And then when I went to the Soviet Union in ’61 (?) I think when Massevitch came over, when they asked us if they could use the telescope. But there had been this program in ’61 I think at that time she said that Soviet astronomers were very, very interested in individual stars, and she was herself. When I went there in ’63, this was one of the important subjects of discussion. And this set up an extremely valuable collaboration with Ambartsumian and particularly with Chugainov. It still goes on. Because he had marvelous recordings. It’s rather interesting, it was as far as I recall the first person, the only person at that time who was recording these flares and getting the curve coming on a piece of paper, whereas the Solomon-Whipple thing was, of course, photographs taken every 30 seconds, or something.

Sullivan

I see. The first one to do it photoelectrically, essentially?

Lovell

I think he was the first one to do it photoelectrically. Or at least he was the first one that I knew and collaborated with.

Sullivan

You mentioned how the Schatzman paper influenced you. I conducted a telephone interview with Unsöld just a month ago, unfortunately I couldn’t see him personally, and he said he gave a talk at the 1955 Manchester Symposium, and he was very vague, you may remember, on the radio stars being stars and they were a strange sort.

Lovell

Yes, quite.

Sullivan

And he says that he had the idea that he put this in your mind that they might well have big flares, these strange M-dwarfs or sub M-dwarfs that he was talking about. Do you have any recollection of this?

Lovell

I remember Unsöld’s paper, but my memory is that it was very distinctly that it was the actual Schatzman paper. Schatzman actually did the elementary calculations which showed that it should be possible. I mean they were order of magnitudes wrong, those calculations.

Sullivan

In any case, before Schatzman’s paper you were not going along saying, “When the dish gets on the air I’m going to do this.”

Lovell

No, not at all. In fact, I think flare stars is one of the things, I’m not sure about this, you will not find in the blue book.

Sullivan

I wouldn’t think so. That would be rather prescient if you did.

Lovell

I’m not speaking against Unsöld in any way. I’ve answered your question as to which particular situation led me to flare stars.

Sullivan

Yeah, I get one story from one person and another from another.

Lovell

I’m pretty certain that was Schatzman. In fact, I know it was. I don’t have to think back all that long because I wrote this up fairly soon afterwards I think. There was probably a popular article about that time. I’ve made a note and I’ll look this up.

Sullivan

Ok, great.

Lovell

So I don’t have to remember back 30 years. I think I had written this up when I was remembering back only a few years. Incidentally, about the flare stars (?) but this last Fall we have at last got clearance for metric records.

Sullivan

Interferometric records – Oh, I hadn’t heard that.

Lovell

Yes, Gibson and I collaborated, and got the computer system going and has isolated nine flares from radio records only. We were rather pleased about this because for over a period occurring before these we had optical coverage and there were the optical flares. So we’re thrilled. But one must do that. I think only now after all these years are we really getting in a position of opening up this subject.

Sullivan

Did you realize that almost 20 years later you’d still be working on these flare stars when you began? You said that when you began that you realized that it might be a long period of nothing.

Lovell

Well, no I’ve done a lot of other things in those years.

Sullivan

No, I’m not trying to imply that you were continuously working on them.

Lovell

No, quite.

Sullivan

These meetings in the late ‘40s, you said every year you had a symposium on a subject. Were the proceedings ever written up in any form?

Lovell

Yes, I think there were two successive years which were particularly critical, which was the first time the Russians began to come out. The first one was on meteors, aurorae, and I think, of the planets, and the second one was on what we then called cosmic noise.

Sullivan

And were they written up in any form, the proceedings of these meetings?

Lovell

I’m pretty certain they were. I’ll check again.

Sullivan

I know about the ’53 meeting on radio astronomy and there was ’54 one on meteors and of course, the ’55 symposium. But I haven’t heard about these. So I’d be surprised if they were in the normal literature. Ok, looking more generally at the development of radio astronomy, especially up to the early 1960’s, what do you think has been its main influence on astronomy, its main contributions to the field?

Lovell

That’s a tough question to answer, isn’t it?

Sullivan

Not in 25 words or less.

Lovell

You’re specifying the time interval?

Sullivan

Well, my study is ending in the early 60’s and so I’m particularly interested before then. But if you want to talk about since then, that’s fine.

Lovell

Oh, I didn’t realize that.

Sullivan

Well, it just gets out of hand if I try to go beyond that. When (?) begins entering the field it’s all over.

Lovell

Well, we’ve dealt with the meteors, so you don’t want to discuss that. There was a clear situation there where the studies revealed the existence of the day-time meteor streams and settled the velocity problem. This is important from the cosmogonic point of view. The next thing one would say is the immense clarification introduced into solar physics from the sun. I mean, nowadays, it’s easy to overlook that, but this was dramatic.

Sullivan

What do you mean in particular?

Lovell

An entirely new understanding about the solar atmosphere, about the temperature of the solar atmosphere, corona, and the sunspots and flares and their relation to radio emission. That was an enormous stimulation at this time, of interest. After all it was D. F. Martyn, I think, who very quickly gave an elegant solution of the origin of radio emission from the quiet sun.

Sullivan

Ginzburg did also, by the way, in ’46.

Lovell

Yes. And then, of course, a classic case in 1960, the discovery of the nature of radio emission from the Milky Way, to which I think Shklovsky must take an enormous amount of credit.

Sullivan

Are you talking about the hydrogen line?

Lovell

No.

Sullivan

Oh, you mean the cosmic ray synchrotron, I’m sorry.

Lovell

I’m talking about the synchrotron emission, and also his explanation of the spectrum of background radiation in terms of both the synchrotron radiation and combination synchrotron and free-free transitions. Then, as you correctly said, the hydrogen line discoveries had a major impact, particularly on understanding of the Galaxy. Then the investigation of the extragalactic radio sources. By 1960 you have set yourself a line, 1960 before quasars were recognized as such.

Sullivan

Well, I’m willing to go over to interesting things like that.

Lovell

You will find my own opinion of the situation which led to the discovery of quasars in my book Out of the Zenith, so you will find the Jodrell in that. I find it difficult now – it’s pretty all-embracing what I’ve said.

Sullivan

I don’t remember what the Jodrell view is. Could you summarize?

Lovell

Well, simply the angular diameter measurements which revealed the possible existence of sources more distant than the source in Bootes, which had a redshift of -

Sullivan

3C 295, you mean?

Lovell

Yes, with redshift 0.4 and this was the work of Palmer and colleagues.

Sullivan

You mean the inference that if they were so small and if they were -

Lovell

Further away. And there was a search for these combined with the positional measurements at that time made in Cambridge. It was (?)

Sullivan

Well, of course Hazard’s observation also was -

Lovell

Hazard’s observation came later. That’s after he left us. His observations in Sydney – that was a much later event in this story, 1962.

Sullivan

Yes, ’62, but it’s my understanding that this was rather important.

Lovell

It was, but the important element of the story had a prehistory to that. The past observations which led to the investigation revealing the existence of the blue stellar objects, which were thought to be stars, were the angular diameter measurements which showed that there were sources probably more distant than the 295 source.

Sullivan

I see what you’re saying.

Lovell

As you will know from your knowledge of the literature, for a year or more these were believed to be within the Milky Way.

Sullivan

Oh, yes, trying to figure out the spectra of the stars and -

Lovell

It was then Hazard’s occultation measurement, I agree, which was very important in stimulating the -

Sullivan

I see what you’re saying. Just for yourself personally, did you feel that when these stellar-like objects began popping up, that gee, maybe it was back to radio stars?

Lovell

I was really rather excited about it because I thought from a different point of view. A very odd reason. I’d never really had much feelings in number counts. I felt they were dealing with such a heterogeneous population that they might well have produced a great answer, but if they hadn’t done it was very lucky by accident. The discovery of the blue stellar objects, whatever they were, excited me very much because it seemed to be – you know you had these private feelings, hunches, conclusions which were presented as being absolute (?) It demonstrated the enormous heterogeneity of the population which was (?) of which we were dealing.

[brief interruption]

Lovell

I always had a lot of sympathy for Hoyle, Gold, in these arguments. I was never convinced about the evolutionary universe until the discovery of the microwave blackbody radiation, which I think like everybody else, I found convincing. But that’s another story.

Sullivan

Well, the microwave background is ’63 or so.

Lovell

Oh, microwave background was much later than that, ’65.

Sullivan

You’re right, it was ’65.

Lovell

And even then, you see, there was a period of a few years of doubt until the turnover. But this is really beyond your study.

Sullivan

But I am interested in your comments on the fact that this heterogeneous population made you rather dubious about the validity of the whole log-n/log-s thing. Because the Cambridge people, of course, argued strongly that this didn’t matter.

Lovell

Oh, I know. But then I’m always very uneasy about the application of statistical theory to prove a point. There are so many examples that I’ve been associated with. The most famous of all, in which I was very much associated with, we’ve been talking about, is the meteor thing where Öpik by the application of statistics which seemed to be inviolate which I’ve recounted in my monograph on meteor astronomy had proved that meteors were hyperbolic. And he was wrong, they were not. But as soon as one did an actual measurement of them they were found not to be.

Sullivan

You sort of have this as an operating principle?

Lovell

I mean, whether you like it or not, I dislike very much drawing conclusions from one or two, what people call now one or two sigmas.

Sullivan

I’ve heard many other people say that. That if you have to make a statistical argument to prove it, then you’re reaching.

Lovell

Oh, I understand. I’m a great admirer of the Cambridge work, but I always had a personal reserve about the conclusions.

Sullivan

As you began working in the late ‘40s you, of course, became aware of the Australian work which – they didn’t get into meteor radar, so that was not so… when did you first really get into the same sort of field as they were doing?

Lovell

Well, we were injected into this straightaway, 1946 when I was working on the sun.

Sullivan

Right, but that lapsed after just looking at a couple of bursts, didn’t it?

Lovell

Yes. I can’t remember the dates now, but as soon as we got the transit telescope going we were using this for – after all it was used by Hanbury Brown and Hazard. What was the date of their M31?

Sullivan

’51.

Lovell

Yes, you see it was a very short interval there.

Sullivan

So in other words when you began to get into source work -

Lovell

Almost immediately.

Sullivan

Only then did you really come into a sort of scientific contact, shall we say, with the Australians?

Lovell

No, I think that is not correct because – it’s amazing how personal contacts and friendships come into this. Taffy Bowen – I was in his group during the beginning of the War. So we knew one another very well, indeed. And Pawsey also. Pawsey was a frequent visitor to us. Now I don’t remember when Pawsey first came to Manchester and Jodrell, but I think it was in the late 1940’s. I think our contacts there were very early. I mean this is in the literature, there’s no need for me to remember that here. I think it was in the late ‘40s.

Sullivan

Another general question that I’ve been asking people is it’s very curious to me why American radio astronomy did not take off like British and Australian radio astronomy did after the War. You had the Radiation Lab. Do you have any opinion why that came about?

Lovell

Yes - I’m just trying to collect my thoughts. I wonder if I dealt with that or not in the short Society thing… What I said in the - I think it’s all part of the general story as to why radio astronomy took so long to develop after Reber’s observations. And what I say in this paper is that it’s related to the general conservative attitude of astronomers and scientists generally. Namely, that either the sun or the stars are pouring out most of their energy in this part of the spectrum (?) And there seemed to be no known physical processes nor no reasons at all for believing that any radiations outside the visual band would give us any really important information about the universe. I’m sure this is basically what appeared to be a sound physical judgment. Could I give you another example?

Sullivan

Yes.

Lovell

People nowadays often wonder why in the early days, for instance, we built this big dish at Jodrell Bank for wavelengths which would now be considered long. They forget that when I had to try and get a considerable sum of money for that dish nobody, apart from Southworth on the sun, had ever succeeded in detecting radio waves with a wavelength of 1 meter. So even then it would have been impossible to have produced arguments which would have convinced other physicists and other scientists standing in judgement on these proposals that one should spend a million pounds, or whatever it was, on producing a dish in a wavelength range in which nothing was known to exist.

Sullivan

Well, there was a little bit. There was Piddington and Minnett did the moon in the late ‘40s, and there was some other solar work, NRL and such.

Lovell

Oh, yes.

Sullivan

But you’re quite right though with the cosmic sources - But now what about when the hydrogen line came along?

Lovell

As you say in America, I think this situation applied in America where the concentration was naturally on the big telescope, after all the 200-inch had just been commissioned in 1947-48. And you must remember America in those days, and I say this with very great respect, was not the immense scientific power that it is today. It is relatively recent this enormous wealth of science in America. You can date it almost to Sputnik.

Sullivan

Oh, yes. I’m a child of that.

Lovell

It created a revolution. It would be quite wrong for me to preach you about the history of American radio astronomy because you know it. But you have famous people like Bart Bok who(?)

End Tape 76B