Bill Gordon, the bloke who designed and built a massive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico has died at the age of 92.
The Arecibo Observatory is well known for finding ice on Mercury, but was such a technological feat it became a film star and was featured in the 1997 film "Contact" and the 1995 James Bond film "GoldenEye."
Gordon built the telescope in 1963. In 1974, astrophysicists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor used it to discover the first binary pulsar, a feat that led to a new understanding of gravitation and won them the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics. In 1990, it discovered planets outside our solar system, circling a pulsar in the constellation Virgo.
Ironically Gordon's big idea was not to use the telescope to look at the atmosphere at an altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 miles. He hoped to observe the behaviour of clouds of electrons, which are a measure of temperature.
To get these measurements he worked out that he needed a dish 1,000 feet across. At the time the largest radio telescope at the time was only 150 feet across and the largest optical telescope only 100 inches.
The problem was that anything bigger would collapse under its own weight. Anything that was light enough to move to track objects in the sky was not rigid enough to focus a signal on its collector. Gordon decided the telescope would have to be sunk into the ground for support and have a movable collector to focus the dish.
He stuck it near the equator to get the best view of the planets and identified the limestone pit on a tobacco farm near Arecibo that ultimately became the site.
He squeezed $10 million cash from the US Ministery of Defence to fund the project and completed it three years later.
It was only supposed to last ten years but it has been upgraded twice and is still providing valuable data.
Signed: Mario getting poop out for thousands of Years.
See below:
"Bill Gordon, the bloke who designed and built a massive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico has died at the age of 92."
[No one man designed such a huge structure, and most certainly no one man built it. The design of a structure as large and complicated as the Arecibo telescope took a team of dozens of engineers, and some scientists, too. The building of it took one or more construction companies with hundreds of employees to do the job. Spread the credit among the hundreds of people who deserve it. DAW]
"The Arecibo Observatory is well known for finding ice on Mercury, but [it is] such a technological feat [that] it became a film star, and [it] was featured in the film "Contact" in 1997 and the James Bond film "GoldenEye" in 1995.
"Gordon built the telescope in 1963. [This doesn't make any sense. Engineers and construction companies built the telescope, and they started work on it earlier, in 1961 or '62. See further along in this article, too.]
"In 1974, the astrophysicists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor used it to discover the first binary pulsar, [an accomplishment] that led to a new understanding of gravitation [Not exactly]. [This] won them the Nobel Prize in physics in 1993. In 1990, [the Arecibo Telescope] discovered planets outside our Solar System, circling a pulsar in the constellation Virgo.
[Here is the sentence that had 15 words missing in the middle of it and made it into nonsense:]
"Ironically, Gordon's big idea was not to use the telescope to look at [the stars and the galaxies in deep space, but rather to make radio observations of] the atmosphere at altitudes of 1,000 to 2,000 miles. He hoped to observe the behavior of clouds of electrons [in the ionosphere], which are a measure of [the] temperature [there].
[The original name of this huge radio dish was the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory for just that reason. On of the primary things that it was to do was to use radar to observed layers of charged particles in the ionosphere.]
[As you can see, I added the 15 words above that are in brackets. Their omission resulted in the sentence's saying "not to use the telescope to look at the atmosphere at altitudes of 1,000 to 2,000 miles," which is the Exact Opposite of what happened, because the Areciblo Observatory REALLY WAS designed and constructed to observe te upper ionosphere. I bet that someone placing this article on the Internet somehow managed to discard an entire line of text - and then they didn't lift a finger to proofread it, either! DAW]
"To get these measurements, [Gordon} worked out that he needed a dish 1,000 feet across. At [that] time, the largest radio telescope [in the world] was only 150 feet across [Incorrect. It was 250 to 300 feet across.] and the largest optical telescope only 100 inches across. [Incorrect, it was the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in southern California - completed in 1948 and 200 inches across. Also, the sensitivity of a telescope is proportional to the SQUARE of its diameter, so the Hale Telescope is four times better that its predecessor, and not just twice as good.]
"The problem was that anything larger would collapse under its own weight. Anything that was light enough [to be able to] to move to track objects in the sky was not rigid enough to focus a signal [onto] its collector. Gordon decided [that] the telescope would have to be sunk into the ground for support, and [also] have a movable collector to [gather radio waves from the dish].
"[Gordon located] it near the equator to get the best view of the planets [Wrong! Remember that he was building an Ionospheric Observatory. Gordon wanted to be able to make observations north of the equator, at the equator, and south of the equator, all from the same location. This took him to Puerto Rico.], and [he] identified the limestone pit on a tobacco farm near Arecibo that ultimately became [its] site.
"[Gordon] squeezed $10 million cash from the US Ministery of Defence. [Incorrect. The United States does not have a Ministery of Defence, and it never has had one. To the contrary, we have the United States Department of Defense ] to fund the project. [The observatory was] completed three years later.
"[The Arecibo Observatory] was only supposed to last [about] ten years, but it has been upgraded twice, and [it] is still providing valuable [radio and radar] data [on outer space and the ionosphere]."