{"id":153,"date":"2007-08-28T20:14:46","date_gmt":"2007-08-28T20:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dgen.net\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/08\/28\/jodrell-bank-50-years-on\/"},"modified":"2020-01-08T00:54:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T00:54:17","slug":"jodrell-bank-50-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/2007\/08\/28\/jodrell-bank-50-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Jodrell Bank, 50 years on …"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year is the 50th anniversary of Jodrell Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today is also a landmark day for Jodrell Bank – the whole science team are moving from on-site, to Manchester University. While this is probably very practical, I can’t help feeling sad that this unique and historic research establishment is dramatically shifting its identity.<\/p>\n

I worked at Jodrell from 1994-1995 and thoroughly enjoyed it: 120 scientists in the middle of a field in deepest Cheshire. Remarkably “British” Science – on my first day I was shown around to one of the “workshops” (very slightly more advanced than a garden shed) where someone was building an amplifier for the main dish, and cooling it to under 20 degrees Kelvin<\/a>, making it one of the quietest amplifiers on Earth.<\/p>\n

In another room, years later, someone was building their own data router, to carry data at 30 Gigabits per second, since the best commercial ones couldn’t come anywhere close<\/p>\n

\"3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

…today MERLIN<\/a>‘s seven telescopes ship 30Gbps, each, to a huge computer cluster at the main facility that processes 150-200Gbps of data in real-time – making it one of the most powerful computers on Earth.<\/p>\n

\"2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The history of Jodrell Bank and the Lovell Telescope<\/a> is vast: it’s first official task was to identify and track Sputnik – it was the only instrument the West had (at the time) that could do so.<\/p>\n

\"1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pulsars<\/a> and Quasars<\/a> are amongst the discoveries in which Jodrell was the catalyst. The Cosmic Microwave Background, Masers, Gravitational Lenses, and myriad others are part of the rich mixture of Radio Astronomy<\/a> research.<\/p>\n


\n