Martin Ryle

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Sir Martin Ryle (born September 27, 1918 in Brighton , † October 14, 1984 in Cambridge ) was a British radio astronomer who developed a new type of radio telescope system and used it to precisely determine the position of weak radio sources. For this achievement he and Antony Hewish received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics . With his research and developments, he revolutionized British astronomy and gave her a leading position in international astronomy.

Life

Martin Ryle was born on September 27, 1918 in Brighton / Sussex as the 2nd child of the John Alfred Ryle family (1889–1950) a highly recognized professor of medicine, social medicine and extraordinary physician to the King of England and his wife Mirame (Scully) Power Ryle . He was a nephew of the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle . His upbringing and care was the responsibility of a governess in the first years of his life. He first studied at the Galdstones prep school in Eaton Square, London. Then, from 1931, he attended Breadfield College, following an old family tradition. During his school days he received regular instructions at home in manual activities from a master carpenter. From 1936 he attended Christ Church in Oxford and during this time he was always able to demonstrate exemplary learning achievements. His interest in radio technology and electronics was clearly evident here. After completing his physics degree at the University of Oxford in 1939, he worked on the development of radar during the Second World War .

After the end of the war, he received a fellowship at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory , where he was a lecturer from 1948 to 1959. In 1957 he became director of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) near Cambridge and in 1959 professor of radio astronomy. From 1952 he was a member of the Royal Society and from 1972 to 1982 Royal Astronomer .

In the last years of his life he campaigned for nuclear disarmament. Ryle was a radio amateur and held the callsign G3CY.

Scientific achievement

During his earlier years at Cambridge, he led the radio astronomy group, which produced catalogs of cosmic radio sources. The most important achievement of this activity was the creation of the Third Cambridge Catalog (3C), which was an important aid in the discovery of the first quasistellar object (quasar) 3C 273 .

In the early 1960s, Ryle's work at the Mullard Observatory supported the Big Bang theory . His counting of weak radio sources in the universe with Peter Scheuer spoke against a homogeneous distribution. This led to fierce controversy and hostility in his group, as the proponents of the steady state theory (such as Fred Hoyle , Hermann Bondi ) were very influential in Great Britain at the time. The group's observation methods were also questioned.

In order to observe distant cosmic radio sources such as quasars, Ryle developed the aperture synthesis, first realized in the One Mile Telescope of the Mullard Observatory (completed in 1964). An important collaborator in this, as in the Big Bang controversy in the mid-1950s, was Peter Scheuer. The basis for this was provided by an interferometer arrangement, which was used by Albert A. Michelson for astronomical purposes as early as 1891 . Ryle's aperture synthesis worked according to the following principle: The resolution depends on the baseline, i.e. on the distance between the telescopes, whereby more precise information about the structure of a radio source can be obtained if the observations are carried out with different antenna distances. The interconnection of different spatially separated telescopes and the resulting increased angular resolution made it possible to track the radio sources on the sun , radio galaxies , quasars and the like. a. to precisely localize cosmic radio emitters. Based on this arrangement developed by Ryle, it was possible to localize the first pulsar in Cambridge .

For these groundbreaking achievements, he and Antony Hewish received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, with a Nobel Prize being awarded for the first time in recognition of astronomical research.

Honors

literature

  • Francis Graham-Smith: Obituary in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Vol. 32 (Dec., 1986), pp. 496-524
  • Harenberg Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Dortmund, 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ National Cataloging Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath: Online catalog of the papers and correspondence of Sir Martin Ryle, FRS (1918-1984)
  2. ↑ Oral History Interview by Scheuer, AIP 1971
  3. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 61267
personal data
SURNAME Ryle, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British radio astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Brighton
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1984
Place of death Cambridge