Quote:
Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman
(Australia has remarkable numbers of electronic & electrical Engineering Physicists/Astronomers with extensive experience in radio telescopes. In fact, someone once said, a little unkindly, that Australian radio astronomers are - in reality - electrical engineers! )
|
Hi Robert,
Well they find themselves in good company in that, globally, many who are now
or who have been radio astronomers came there via electrical engineering.
And I suspect many who started out as radio astronomers quickly became press
ganged into either hardware or software engineering for radio astronomy
telescope building and instrumentation.
Historically, many of the pioneers of radio astronomy had strong links
with electrical engineering.
In the U.S., Karl Jansky was Professor of Electrical Engineering at Wisconsin
University.
John Kraus was an Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering and Astronomy.
Grote Reber had a degree in Electrical Engineering.
Born in the US, he began experimenting in the late 1930's and there
was a period of a decade where it is said he was the world's only radio astronomer.
In the 1950's he moved to Tasmania where he continued to work.
The University of Tasmania runs a museum in his honor.
See
http://www.groterebermuseum.org.au/
Likewise pioneer Bernard Mills who was born here in Sydney did engineering at
Sydney University and was instrumental in the design and operation of the
Mills Cross Telescope with what was then the CSIR.
Obituary here in the Sydney Morning Herald on his passing in 2011 under the heading
"Engineer a star of astronomy" -
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obitua...520-1ewo0.html
Here is a CSIRO Division of Radiophysics documentary from 1949 -
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIhs3yp6zSI
Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCbbKjOJ1zc
It showcases how the division began just before WWII and designed special purpose
RADARs. After the war, peacetime activities turned to areas such as radio
astronomy.
Here is another made by CSIRO in 1958 -
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NVD6tUurVw
Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1c1LMWCQ_Q
Engineering is applied science. Therefore I am somewhat surprised to hear Malcolm's
comment that radio astronomy is a field where "science and engineering can
easily co-exist together without the current snobby attitude I see with most
engineering practices."
The successful engineering organizations I have come into contact with over my
own career all fully embrace science.
In the case of astronomy, whether at optical or radio wavelengths, the engineer's
"clients", the astronomers, are embedded within the same organization.
The astronomers and engineers are involved in a highly collaborative enterprise starting
from specification all the way through to commissioning and day to day
operation, maintenance and upgrading.
It is no coincidence that radio astronomy has such intimate ties with electrical
engineering. The telescopes are highly sensitive radio receivers after all.
Today, with interferometry commonly employed on long baseline radio telescope
antenna arrays, digital back-ends are all the go. For example, the SKA's realtime
frequency-based cross multiplier correlators have to crunch in the order of
10**15 complex accumulate and multiply operations per second to perform the
required fast Fourier transforms (FFTs). The astronomers have specified the
science requirements and there is so much interdisciplinary overlap that
they are also cognizant of the techniques employed but it is typically the
role of the engineer to recommend and design the architecture and to
deliver the implementation.
In this example. both the astronomer and engineer have the requisite backgrounds in
mathematics and both understand what an FFT is. The mathematics and the power
it provides in many ways form a common language. But typically it will be
the engineers who are best across designing the hardware itself and making
decisions on what type of components would be most suitable.
For example, they will have done a cost benefit analysis between designing their
own full custom integrated circuits or using programmable semi-custom devices.
At the speeds these circuits will operate at, most of the interconnects will be
treated as transmission lines. For digital designers these days, the
speed of light is annoyingly slow to the point that the interconnect delay
through the dielectric of a circuit board, which is typically in the order of
180 picoseconds/inch, is a major pain in the backside. I have been joking to
colleagues lately that if this speed is the best that God can do, he has a lot to answer for.
In any case, the black art of dealing with these issues, which themselves are
firmly rooted in Maxwell's equations, is the domain of the electrical engineer
and the astronomer need not bother themselves with this low a level of detail.
Suffice to say that unless they want to roll up their own sleeves and get involved,
the astronomer simply needs to know it is challenging. There is enough specialist
work for everyone.
A few years back, Wildcard Innovations had the privilege of being a contractor
to the Anglo Australian Observatory and we contributed our small part to
some of the embedded software used in the IRIS 2 Infrared camera.
That instrument too went onto win a couple of Institute of Engineers Australia
awards and we were thankful to be mentioned in the AAO's submission.
Whilst working at the AAO offices here in Sydney, which is also on the same
campus as CSIRO radio physics, at times the then head of the AAO, an astrophysicist
by profession, would come down to the lab and inquire as to whether we
were comfortable and was there anything we needed to aid our task.
Wearing the hat of an astronomer, administrator and project manager, he clearly
understood that everyone was on the same team with a common goal. That the
process of successfully engineering the instrument was part of a continuum that
eventually results in the science. Today that same individual is the
SKA CSIRO Director.
Best regards
Gary Kopff
Mt Kuring-Gai NSW
