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AT&T instrumental in cosmic microwave background discovery in 1964 [Telecom]

In 1964 I was already with the Electronic Defense Labs at White Sands Missile Range and 2 years later at their facility in Silicon Valley. Being an amateur astronomer for nearly 60 years now (2010) and having every issue of Sky & Telescope magazine (thanks to DVDs), I'm red-faced to admit I'd forgotten about the Cosmic Microwave Background discovery in 1964 until reading a "Letters to the Editor" in the October 2010 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, which begins:

" I am writing about a historic landmark that has been left " abandoned and in jeopardy. " " On May 8th I traveled to New Jersey to see the horn antenna " with which Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the " cosmic microwave background in 1964, establishing the reality " of the Big Bang. The horn is frequently mentioned and pictured " in histories of science and astronomy, it's a registered " National History Landmark, and I figured it was time I had a " look at it. The experience left me disconcerted. " " After driving up and down Crawford Corners Road in Holmdel for " more than an hour, I was unable to find it. I did find a small " sign by the road that told me I was near the site where the " cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered. This was, " however, miles away from where I eventually found the antenna. " " I was on the verge of giving up when I happened upon Lucent " Technologies, which I knew had inherited the legendary Bell Labs " where Penzias and Wilson worked. I drove around the Lucent " campus until I found someone and explained my quest. He pointed " me to a road up a hill. " [...]

I made a one-page PDF copy of that "Letters" page and you can see it, with a photo of the horn antenna, here:

[770 KB]

I feel such a one-page PDF is "fair use" and felt this group might enjoy seeing a slice of AT&T arcana.

The October 2010 issue should be on newsstands until mid-October.

Reply to
Thad Floryan
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A bit more detail is given in slides 18-23 of a 14 MB PDF at:

[I'm not certain this is the exact horn used by Penzias and Wilson, but if not, then it's a slightly earlier horn and microwave solid-state maser system also at Holmdel. Also the masers in the cutaway drawings are from my lab at Stanford University, but are very similar to those that Bell Labs was making about the same time.
Reply to
AES

That's a fascinating overview of laser history and several of the slides reminded me of something bizarre regarding telephony.

Trans-oceanic telephone cabling used to be humongous in girth and I was amazed such cabling even existed. Later, the original cabling was replaced with its fiber counterparts and strange cuts/disconnects began plaguing the system in the vicinity of Hawaii.

Long story short, the fiber replacement cables are relatively small diameter and within the jaw capacity of great white sharks who are also able to sense electrical fields. The story I heard has the sharks becoming angry with the electrical fields surrounding the cable (the electrical power is needed for fiber repeaters) and they'd bite down on it/them thus severing the cabling. Newer replacement cabling has shields to thwart sharks.

An article here reveals that great white sharks annually migrate between Hawaii and Northern California per "a landmark study released last year by Stanford University":

And per Wikipedia : " [...] " Great white sharks, like all other sharks, have an extra sense " given by the Ampullae of Lorenzini, which enables them to detect the " electromagnetic field emitted by the movement of living animals. Every " time a living creature moves it generates an electrical field and great " whites are so sensitive they can detect half a billionth of a volt. " Even heart beats emit a very faint electrical pulse. If close enough " the shark can detect even that faint electrical pulse.

So the story of great white sharks severing the transoceanic cabling seems credible.

Reply to
Thad Floryan

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