Shaddows and Glints Unit

Glints are internal reports of the Stanford Radio Astronomy Institute. Any member of the Radio Astronomy group could write a Glint and hand it to the Secretary, Mildren Nilsson, and expect copies to be delivered to all members promptly, without review. Apart from providing a written record of minutiae, this custom played a role in giving students experience in succinct technical writing. Not much encouragement proved to be necessary as there was an element of compteition among graduate students not wishing to be underrepresented. Of course, the postdocs and the advanced graduate students, having had dealings with the journal refereeing system, could set good examples. Indeed, many Glints proved to be first drafts of published papers.

The first forty-nine items in the series were listed as Shaddows, the name assigned by Charles Seeger. It is not known whether this spelling had some secret significance, that Charles never clarified, or whether it was a spelling error. The first report of the series was written by James Picken on October 3, 1961. Starting with number 50, the reports were called Glints, referring to the glint in the eye of a good scientist.

As of the summer solstice 1997, the number of Glints stood at 748, representing an average production rate of 21 per annum over 36 years.