Robert Hanbury Brown AC (31 August 1916 – 16 January 2002) was a British astronomer and physicist born in Aruvankadu, India. He studied electrical engineering at the University of London, from where he received a Master's degree in telecommunication in 1935. From 1936 to 1942 he worked for the Air Ministry, where he helped to develop radar. He then joined the Tizard Mission and spent 3 years in Washington, D.C. to work with the Combined Research Group at the Naval Research Laboratory. After the end of the war he returned to Britain and rejoined the scientific civil service. A consultancy that had been set up by Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the father of radar, offered more interesting prospects for the conversion of wartime developments into peacetime technologies. Hanbury Brown allowed himself to be recruited and worked as a consulting engineer until Watson-Watt decided to move the firm to Canada. After pondering a number of career possibilities, he returned to academia in the autumn of 1949, when he joined Bernard Lovell's radio astronomy group at the University of Manchester. Insignia of a Companion of the Order of Australia. ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... For other uses, see Astronomy (disambiguation). ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Aruvankadu, is a small town located in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India. ... The University of London is a university based primarily in London. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Air Ministry was formerly a department of the United Kingdom Government, established in 1918 with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the (then newly formed) Royal Air Force. ... For other uses, see Radar (disambiguation). ... Sir Henry Tizard, instigator and leader of The Tizard Mission In the late September 1940 during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, a delegation arrived from the UK in the United States on a mission instigated by Henry Tizard, known as the Tizard Mission. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... The US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps and conducts a broad program of scientific research and advanced development. ... Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, ca. ... Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell OBE PhD FRS (born 31 August 1913, Oldland Common, Bristol) is a British physicist and radio astronomer. ...

At the Jodrell Bank Observatory of Manchester University, Hanbury Brown developed some of the earliest devices to be used in radio astronomy. He worked closely with the mathematician Richard Q. Twiss on the development of, amongst other things, radio intensity interferometry and the first optical stellar intensity interferometer. Using this instrument he became the first person to measure the angular diameter of the star Sirius. In 1962 he relocated to New South Wales in Australia to oversee the construction of the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer. Two years into the task he resigned from the chair that had been created for him at Manchester and took up an appointment at the University of Sydney. After the Narrabri interferometer was decommissioned in 1974, having completed its task (to measure the angular diameter of 32 main sequence stars), he stayed on in Sydney to design a next generation instrument. This was not to be another intensity interferometer, but a modernised Michelson interferometer. As Hanbury Brown himself was keen to emphasize, the development of this technologically exceedingly demanding instrument -- the Sydney University Stellar Interferometer (SUSI) -- became essentially the project of his colleague John Davis. The SUSI opened in 1991. The Very Large Array, a radio interferometer in New Mexico, USA Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects in the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. ... Richard Q. Twiss (? – 20 May 2005) is famous for his work on the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss effect with Robert Hanbury Brown. ... An intensity interferometer is the name given to devices that use the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss effect. ... For other uses, see Sirius (disambiguation). ... Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer was the first astronomical instrument to measure the diameters of a large number of stars at visible wavelengths. ... The University of Sydney, established in Sydney in 1850, is the oldest university in Australia. ...

In 1968, Hanbury Brown received the Eddington Medal jointly with Twiss. For his efforts in developing the optical stellar intensity interferometer and for his observations of Spica, he was awarded the Hughes Medal in 1971. In 1982 he was named President of the International Astronomical Union, a title he retained until the end of his term in 1985. In 1986 he was made a Companion in the Order of Australia. The Eddington Medal, named after Sir Arthur Eddington, is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society nominally once every two years for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. ... An intensity interferometer is the name given to devices that use the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss effect. ... Spica (α Vir / α Virginis / Alpha Virginis) is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. ... The Hughes Medal, named after microphone inventor David Edward Hughes, is one of several medals awarded by the Royal Society, Englands reigning academy of science. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... Logo of the IAU The International Astronomical Union (French: Union astronomique internationale) unites national astronomical societies from around the world. ... This article is about the year. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Insignia of a Companion of the Order of Australia. ...

He wrote an autobiographical account of the development of airborne and ground based radar, and his subsequent work on radio astronomy. Since he was rumoured to have been the original boffin who inspired the term, he called these recollections Boffin: A Personal Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio Astronomy and Quantum Optics (ISBN 0-7503-0130-9). A boffin in action: Dr Alexander Thorkel (Albert Dekker) from Dr. Cyclops (1940) In the slang of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, boffins are scientists, engineers, and other people who are stereotypically seen as engaged in technical or scientific research. ...

Brown died in Andover, Hampshire. Statistics Population: 52,000 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SU3645 Administration District: Test Valley Region: South East England Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: Hampshire Historic county: Hampshire Services Police force: Hampshire Constabulary Fire and rescue: {{{Fire}}} Ambulance: South Central Post office and telephone Post town... For other uses, see Hampshire (disambiguation). ...

References

• Hanbury-Brown and Twiss, A test of a new type of stellar interferometer on Sirius Nature, Vol. 178, pp. 1046 1956
• Hanbury-Brown et al., The angular diameters of 32 stars Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., Vol. 167, pp 121-136 1974
• Hanbury-Brown, BOFFIN : A Personal Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio Astronomy and Quantum Optics ISBN 0-7503-0130-9.
• D. Edge and M. Mulkay, Astronomy Transformed. The Emergence of Radio Astronomy in Britain (John Wiley, 1976)
• J. Agar, Science and Spectacle. The Work of Jodrell Bank in Postwar British Culture (Harwood Academic, 1997)

Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ...

Further reading

• John Davis and Bernard Lovell. "Robert Hanbury Brown 31 August 1916--16 January 2002." Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Vol. 49. (Dec., 2003), pp. 83-106. [1]

The Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, (formerly known as Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society), is a journal published by the Royal Society of London. ...

External links

• The papers of Robert Hanbury Brown have just been processed by the NCUACS, Bath, England [2]. They can now be consulted in the Archives of the Royal Society.