Word: radio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Razors, Trolleys. Radio astronomers have long tried their hands at listening for artificial signals from space, but have only recently developed the equipment necessary for the job. Receivers, once confused by electric razors, passing trolleys and their own crackling vacuum tubes, can now be built to block out all conflicting interference. Antennas are being built ever larger: Green Bank already has a 140-footer under construction, has hopes for others 300 ft. and 1,000 ft. wide...
...direct charge of the project is Harvard-trained Astronomer Frank Drake, 29. His assumption is that if other civilizations do exist, some must be more advanced than the one on Earth. "We would expect," says Drake, "to find scattered throughout our galaxy, planets from which radio transmissions more powerful than ours are radiated...
...Society." To support their hunches. Drake and other radio astronomers cite a closely reasoned paper published this fall by Cornell Physicists Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi, who postulate an advanced society not far away (as space distances go) that has long been "expecting the development of science near the sun." Wrote Morrison and Cocconi : "We shall assume that long ago they established a channel of communication that would one day become known to us, and that they look forward patiently to the answering signals from the sun which would make known to them that a new society has entered...
...Since the object of those who operate the source is to find a newly evolved society, we may presume that the channel used will be one that places a minimum burden of frequency and angular discrimination on the detector . . . The wide radio band from, say 1 mc to 10,000 mc, remains as the rational choice. For indisputable identification as artificial, one signal might contain, for example, a sequence of small prime numbers of pulses, or simple arithmetical sums...
...strike caused no shortage in other areas where the consumer likes to pour out his cash. September output of major appliances was up 30% over last year, radio-television output up 28%, production of textiles and clothing up 14%. With steelworkers back at their jobs and laid-off auto workers gradually going back, merchants are already looking forward to record Christmas buying...