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2012 AO Deadpool Update: Bernard Lovell
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Hyfler/Rosner
Nov 8, 2012, 10:00:58 PM11/8/12
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Jim Thornton is always volunteering in this year of the missing updates.
I'm very grateful and wish I could do something for him and all the
people coming through. I'll try to think of something. In the
meantime, enjoy this amazing recap. And poem, of course. Chipmunk
Roasting, Deceased Hose and Drunkasaskunk trioed up for this one for 3
points. It's possible that those are the longest names we have!
Deadpool obits tend to be irreverent nonsense cribbed from Wikipaedia,
or at least mine do. But my friend, the historian Peter Liddle gave me
the transcript of an interview he did with Bernard Lovell for his World
War 2 Experience centre a few years ago. So this may contain something
original. I’ll try to be serious. Apart from the poem of course. Here
goes.
Bernard Lovell was the man behind the 76 metre Jodrell Bank radio
telescope, the first, largest, and most famous, steerable “big dish” in
the world - it’s now number three, but don’t pretend you’ve heard of
Effelsberg or Green Bank. The iconic structure in the fields near
Manchester is now so familiar that it’s difficult to recall the bother
of getting it built. The engineers were nervous that it would suddenly
crumple - rightly so, it later turned out, when other cheaper telescopes
collapsed dramatically – so the kept putting on more expensive bracing.
The budget overruns became a national scandal, and Lovell was hauled
before parliament, hounded in the press and even threatened with
personal bankruptcy.
And then he was saved. The telescope worked. It not only hoovered up
unimaginable quantities’ of data from distant galaxies, but was the only
Western device capable of tracking the first Russian Sputniks as they
flew over, and later the first pictures from an unmanned Russian
moonlanding. The bureaucrats pressured Lovell for a couple of years, but
eventually Lord Nuffield, the car magnate, wrote the cheque that sprung
him free.
Bernard Lovell was born in Oldland Common near Bristol. His father, a
lay reader in the local church, where Bernard played the organ, founded
the Oldland Cycle and Radio Company. Bernard built his first wireless at
school, and recalls that an inspiring public lecture in the university’s
WD&HO Wills Physics lab encouraged him later to build the Jodrell Bank
visitor centre; some good coming out of tobacco. At Bristol University
in the late 1920s, he found himself researching next door to Klaus
Fuchs, then a fugitive from the Nazis, later the famous spy who leaked
atomic secrets to Russia.
After Bristol he went to work with the Nobel prizewinner, X-ray
crystallographer, William Bragg in Manchester having just failed to get
his first choice job with the physicist Patrick Blackett in London. Not
a bad consolation prize! But soon Blackett moved to Manchester and they
worked together on cosmic radiation. When the war started, Blackett sent
Lovell to work at the Bawdsey research station on radio wave detection.
This was the work that eventually led to the first workable radar
systems. Lovell, still in his twenties, was right in the thick of it,
shortening the wavelength to improve resolution, altering bombers to fit
the equipment, mixing with the generals, and on occasion even visiting
Downing Street to get Churchill’s blessing. He admitted it went to his
head and led to his near downfall twenty years later.
Lovell later claimed that on a visit to a radar station near Scarborough
he saw masses of echoes on the screen and rebuked the operator for not
reporting them. The reply “That’s not echoes, it’s what we call the
ionosphere” gave him the idea of radio astronomy and eventually the
radio telescope. It wasn’t true - Karl Jansky had made the first radio
telescope in 1931 and knew that the background hiss came from outer
space, and Grote Reber had built the first parabolic dish in 1937 - but
it made a good story.
But the first moon pictures were Lovell’s. In the late sixties while
monitoring an unmanned Soviet spacecraft which had landed on the moon he
suddenly realised it was transmitting back a picture. He had to borrow a
local newspaper’s digital picture technology - this was long before
jpegs or bitmaps – to create a print, but it flew round the world. The
Russians had kept it secret and he’d scooped the Americans with the
first picture of the surface of the moon.
Now the telescope spends its days searching for pulsars, and its nights
hosting musical events. A few weeks before they closed the Olympic
ceremony, Manchester’s rock gods, Elbow, performed in front of it.
Lovell the showman would have approved.
Sitting up in Manchester
He was just plain Mr Lovell
When he first got the idea
To build a telescope at Jodrell
He was expert on the radio waves
But he knew no economics
So he had to bluff the money
And talk about astronomics
But the telescope was pricey
The money was overspent
He nearly went to prison
There were questions in parliament
Then Sputnik flew over
And only he could track it
The first photo from the moon
Jodrell Bank got it
Pulsars and galaxies
Soon they came fast and thick.
Wanna see the Big Bang?
Get yourself to Jodrell quick
Pop stars came and went
But Jodrell’s fame went on so long
That instead of the Elbow,
They gave Lovell a gong
1. Eve Arnold
2. Frederica Maas
3. Malam Bacai Sanhá
4. Bill Janklow
5. Arfa Karim
6. Johnny Otis
7. Etta James
8. Eiko Ishioka
9. Joe Paterno
10. Dick Tufeld
11. Robert Hegyes
12. Kevin White
13. Don Cornelius
14. Ben Gazzara
15. Norton Zinder
16. Peter Breck
17. Gunther Plaut
18. Trent Frayne
19. Whitney Houston
20. John Severin
21. Gary Carter
22. Frank Sanders
23. Sheldon Moldoff
24. Leonardo Cimino
25. William Heirens
26. Robert B. Sherman
27. Bugs Henderson
28. Jock Hobbs
29. John Demjanjuk
30. Shenouda III
31. Jim Stynes
32. Larry Stevenson
33. Bert Sugar
34. Warren Stevens
35. Earl Scruggs
36. Miguel de la Madrid
37. Leila Denmark
38. Gil Noble
39. Bingu wa Mutharika
40. Mike Wallace
41. Jonathan Frid
42. Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller
43. David Peat
44. Dick Clark
45. Charles Colson
46. Amos Vogel
47. Moose Skowron
48. Fred Allen
49. Adam Yauch
50. Denny Fitch
51. Vidal Sassoon
52. Evelyn Bryan Johnson
53. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
54. Robin Gibb
55. Doc Watson
56. Kathryn Joosten
57. Richard Dawson
58. LeRoy Ellis
59. Ray Bradbury
60. Nolan Miller
61. Frank Cady
62. Henry Hill
63. LeRoy Neiman
64. Richard Adler
65. Yitzhak Shamir
66. Andy Griffith
67. Ernest Borgnine
68. Donald J. Sobol
69. Celeste Holm
70. Jon Lord
71. Kitty Wells
72. Tom Davis
73. J.P. Patches
74. R.G. Armstrong
75. Geoffrey Hughes
76. Tony Martin
77. Gore Vidal
78. Bernard Lovell
79. Ray Harding
80. Michael Dokes
81. Gregory Powell
82. Helen Gurley Brown
83. Johnny Pesky
84. Harry Harrison
85. William Windom
86. Phyllis Diller
87. Dom Mintoff
88. Steve Van Buren
89. Steve Franken
90. Neil Armstrong
91. Max Bygraves
92. Hal David
93. Sun Myung Moon
94. Art Modell
95. Steve Sabol
96. Andy Williams
97. Herbert Lom
98. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
99. Turhan Bey
100. Eric Hobsbawm
101. Paddy Roy Bates
102. Norodom Sihanouk
103. Arlen Specter
I'm very grateful and wish I could do something for him and all the
people coming through. I'll try to think of something. In the
meantime, enjoy this amazing recap. And poem, of course. Chipmunk
Roasting, Deceased Hose and Drunkasaskunk trioed up for this one for 3
points. It's possible that those are the longest names we have!
Deadpool obits tend to be irreverent nonsense cribbed from Wikipaedia,
or at least mine do. But my friend, the historian Peter Liddle gave me
the transcript of an interview he did with Bernard Lovell for his World
War 2 Experience centre a few years ago. So this may contain something
original. I’ll try to be serious. Apart from the poem of course. Here
goes.
Bernard Lovell was the man behind the 76 metre Jodrell Bank radio
telescope, the first, largest, and most famous, steerable “big dish” in
the world - it’s now number three, but don’t pretend you’ve heard of
Effelsberg or Green Bank. The iconic structure in the fields near
Manchester is now so familiar that it’s difficult to recall the bother
of getting it built. The engineers were nervous that it would suddenly
crumple - rightly so, it later turned out, when other cheaper telescopes
collapsed dramatically – so the kept putting on more expensive bracing.
The budget overruns became a national scandal, and Lovell was hauled
before parliament, hounded in the press and even threatened with
personal bankruptcy.
And then he was saved. The telescope worked. It not only hoovered up
unimaginable quantities’ of data from distant galaxies, but was the only
Western device capable of tracking the first Russian Sputniks as they
flew over, and later the first pictures from an unmanned Russian
moonlanding. The bureaucrats pressured Lovell for a couple of years, but
eventually Lord Nuffield, the car magnate, wrote the cheque that sprung
him free.
Bernard Lovell was born in Oldland Common near Bristol. His father, a
lay reader in the local church, where Bernard played the organ, founded
the Oldland Cycle and Radio Company. Bernard built his first wireless at
school, and recalls that an inspiring public lecture in the university’s
WD&HO Wills Physics lab encouraged him later to build the Jodrell Bank
visitor centre; some good coming out of tobacco. At Bristol University
in the late 1920s, he found himself researching next door to Klaus
Fuchs, then a fugitive from the Nazis, later the famous spy who leaked
atomic secrets to Russia.
After Bristol he went to work with the Nobel prizewinner, X-ray
crystallographer, William Bragg in Manchester having just failed to get
his first choice job with the physicist Patrick Blackett in London. Not
a bad consolation prize! But soon Blackett moved to Manchester and they
worked together on cosmic radiation. When the war started, Blackett sent
Lovell to work at the Bawdsey research station on radio wave detection.
This was the work that eventually led to the first workable radar
systems. Lovell, still in his twenties, was right in the thick of it,
shortening the wavelength to improve resolution, altering bombers to fit
the equipment, mixing with the generals, and on occasion even visiting
Downing Street to get Churchill’s blessing. He admitted it went to his
head and led to his near downfall twenty years later.
Lovell later claimed that on a visit to a radar station near Scarborough
he saw masses of echoes on the screen and rebuked the operator for not
reporting them. The reply “That’s not echoes, it’s what we call the
ionosphere” gave him the idea of radio astronomy and eventually the
radio telescope. It wasn’t true - Karl Jansky had made the first radio
telescope in 1931 and knew that the background hiss came from outer
space, and Grote Reber had built the first parabolic dish in 1937 - but
it made a good story.
But the first moon pictures were Lovell’s. In the late sixties while
monitoring an unmanned Soviet spacecraft which had landed on the moon he
suddenly realised it was transmitting back a picture. He had to borrow a
local newspaper’s digital picture technology - this was long before
jpegs or bitmaps – to create a print, but it flew round the world. The
Russians had kept it secret and he’d scooped the Americans with the
first picture of the surface of the moon.
Now the telescope spends its days searching for pulsars, and its nights
hosting musical events. A few weeks before they closed the Olympic
ceremony, Manchester’s rock gods, Elbow, performed in front of it.
Lovell the showman would have approved.
Sitting up in Manchester
He was just plain Mr Lovell
When he first got the idea
To build a telescope at Jodrell
He was expert on the radio waves
But he knew no economics
So he had to bluff the money
And talk about astronomics
But the telescope was pricey
The money was overspent
He nearly went to prison
There were questions in parliament
Then Sputnik flew over
And only he could track it
The first photo from the moon
Jodrell Bank got it
Pulsars and galaxies
Soon they came fast and thick.
Wanna see the Big Bang?
Get yourself to Jodrell quick
Pop stars came and went
But Jodrell’s fame went on so long
That instead of the Elbow,
They gave Lovell a gong
1. Eve Arnold
2. Frederica Maas
3. Malam Bacai Sanhá
4. Bill Janklow
5. Arfa Karim
6. Johnny Otis
7. Etta James
8. Eiko Ishioka
9. Joe Paterno
10. Dick Tufeld
11. Robert Hegyes
12. Kevin White
13. Don Cornelius
14. Ben Gazzara
15. Norton Zinder
16. Peter Breck
17. Gunther Plaut
18. Trent Frayne
19. Whitney Houston
20. John Severin
21. Gary Carter
22. Frank Sanders
23. Sheldon Moldoff
24. Leonardo Cimino
25. William Heirens
26. Robert B. Sherman
27. Bugs Henderson
28. Jock Hobbs
29. John Demjanjuk
30. Shenouda III
31. Jim Stynes
32. Larry Stevenson
33. Bert Sugar
34. Warren Stevens
35. Earl Scruggs
36. Miguel de la Madrid
37. Leila Denmark
38. Gil Noble
39. Bingu wa Mutharika
40. Mike Wallace
41. Jonathan Frid
42. Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller
43. David Peat
44. Dick Clark
45. Charles Colson
46. Amos Vogel
47. Moose Skowron
48. Fred Allen
49. Adam Yauch
50. Denny Fitch
51. Vidal Sassoon
52. Evelyn Bryan Johnson
53. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
54. Robin Gibb
55. Doc Watson
56. Kathryn Joosten
57. Richard Dawson
58. LeRoy Ellis
59. Ray Bradbury
60. Nolan Miller
61. Frank Cady
62. Henry Hill
63. LeRoy Neiman
64. Richard Adler
65. Yitzhak Shamir
66. Andy Griffith
67. Ernest Borgnine
68. Donald J. Sobol
69. Celeste Holm
70. Jon Lord
71. Kitty Wells
72. Tom Davis
73. J.P. Patches
74. R.G. Armstrong
75. Geoffrey Hughes
76. Tony Martin
77. Gore Vidal
78. Bernard Lovell
79. Ray Harding
80. Michael Dokes
81. Gregory Powell
82. Helen Gurley Brown
83. Johnny Pesky
84. Harry Harrison
85. William Windom
86. Phyllis Diller
87. Dom Mintoff
88. Steve Van Buren
89. Steve Franken
90. Neil Armstrong
91. Max Bygraves
92. Hal David
93. Sun Myung Moon
94. Art Modell
95. Steve Sabol
96. Andy Williams
97. Herbert Lom
98. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
99. Turhan Bey
100. Eric Hobsbawm
101. Paddy Roy Bates
102. Norodom Sihanouk
103. Arlen Specter
MWB
Nov 8, 2012, 11:06:42 PM11/8/12
to
Nice obit
GO ALT.OBITUARIES
Mark
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