Today in Technology History
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October 22
The relationship between science and technology is often distorted. Too many people think of technology merely as "applied science." In fact, modern science would be impossible without technology. And several important scientific discoveries were made by tinkering technicians instead of researchers in the realms of "pure science." For instance, the inventor Thomas Edison, whom we discussed yesterday, discovered a previously unknown scientific phenomenon while working on his light bulb; it was named the "Edison Effect" in his honor. Similarly, our story today is about a technician, not a scientist, who stumbled upon one of the greatest discoveries in twentieth century astronomy.
Karl Guthe Jansky was born on October 22, 1905 in Oklahoma. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin, then took a job working for the Bell Telephone company's labs in New Jersey. He was assigned the task of finding the source of (and hopefully eliminating) the static noise that interfered with radiotelephone reception.
Jansky built a large radio antenna that could be pointed in any direction on the ground or above the horizon; it was probably the largest directable radio antenna in the world at the time. He also built other specialized equipment to help pinpoint the source of the static. He determined that the worst interference came from thunderstorms, both nearby and far-off. But there was also another kind of static -- a quiet, persistent hiss that perplexed Jansky.
Starting in 1931, he made a number of discoveries about the source of the static. He found that the static emissions came on a cycle that exactly matched the Earth's rotation. The static wasn't caused by the Sun, he learned, and it pretty clearly seemed to have no terrestrial origin.
By late 1932, Jansky concluded that the static was caused by radio emissions coming from outer space -- from the heart of the Milky Way. Countless stars in our galaxy were emitting radio waves, some of which were being picked up on Earth as static. Jansky published his findings about this "star noise" in 1933.
In time, astronomers recognized the importance of Jansky's discovery, and the modern era of radio astronomy was born. Using techniques evolved from Jansky's work in the 1930s, astronomers discovered pulsars, quasars and even lingering radiation from the Big Bang.
Jansky didn't live to see these astronomical achievements; always cursed with health problems, he died in 1950 at the age of 44. In 1973, the unit of measurement for the intensity of radio waves was named the "jansky" in his honor.
Related links:
Click here and here to read about Jansky's discovery and the subsequent history of radio astronomy.
Click here to read about a monument to Jansky that was erected in 1998 on the former site of his antenna.
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