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Exotic Dark Matter Detector Deep in an Italian Mountainside Picks Up Unexplained New Signal

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by WJ4U, Jun 18, 2020.

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  1. W9OFF

    W9OFF Ham Member QRZ Page

    One of the unfortunate side effects of our modern world is specialization. Each specialized field is populated with scientists digging deep holes in their respective fields of knowledge, and throwing piles of good information. Unfortunately, there are far too few folks sitting up top attempting to see how all of these piles of information may be connected.

    Example relevant to this thread.

    Karl Jansky, 1931, was the first person to hear radio waves from outer space. Jansky received no formal recognition of his discovery. It was way ahead of its time because radio waves had nothing to do with astronomy, so it really fell between radio engineering and astronomy,

    Anyone here old enough to recall two fellows named Penzias and Wilson?

    Bell labs built a massive horn type radio telescope in the 1960's to experiment with satellite communication. When they began to use it as a “telescope” they found there was a background "noise" (like static in a radio).

    This annoyance was a uniform signal in the microwave range, seeming to come from all directions. Everyone assumed it came from the telescope itself, which was not unusual. It hadn't interfered with the Echo system, but Penzias and Wilson had to get rid of it to make the observations they planned.

    They checked everything to rule out the source of the excess radiation. They pointed the antenna right at New York City -- it wasn't urban interference. It wasn't radiation from our galaxy or extraterrestrial radio sources. It wasn't radio interference from a nearby military base. It wasn't even the pigeons living in the big, horn-shaped antenna. (Penzias and Wilson kicked them out and swept out all their droppings).

    They were frustrated that their telescope was apparently malfunctioning, detecting a background layer of “noise” that muddied the real data they were after. After eliminating all possible sources of interference, they had to conclude it was not the telescope and it was not random noise causing the radiation.

    It wasn’t until much later, when they realized their noise was actually some of the earliest light ever created—the so-called the cosmic microwave background, (CMB) radiation—that the astronomers appreciated what they had done.

    The upshot was they received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics.


    “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Louis Pasteur

    “Every age has its superstitions, and ours is the notion that science is an infallible and all-sufficient guide to truth.” -Louis Cassels –


    Big Bang's Ripples: Two Scientists Recall Their Big Discovery

    https://www.npr.org/2014/05/20/3142...low-two-scientists-recall-their-big-discovery
     

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