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Summary:
In this video interview Fred describes:
Captions:
Music:
Kerry: So Fred have you always wanted to gaze at stars?
Fred: I have, yes, for as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to study the universe and it’s a bit paradoxical cause where I grew up
the weather was always terrible in the North of England so you hardly ever saw the sky.
Kerry: So, what excites you most about astronomy?
Fred: I think the thing that excites me about astronomy is what excites everybody. It’s the fact that there’s a huge unknown out there, you know we know what the world is like,
and we know what the Solar System is like we’ve explored that with spacecraft. But when we look into the depths of the universe
we’re looking into a region that really is quite alien to our experience but it’s got the potential to tell us some amazing things about ourselves.
The big questions we ask are where did we come from? And are we alone? What’s our destiny those are the reasons why I am excited about astronomy.
Summary:
In this video interview Fred talks about:
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Kerry: One of the big news highlights lately has been the landing of the Phoenix moon probe on Mars.
Do you think what we find there will change the way we think about evolution of planetary life?
Fred: I do. I think potentially if Mars, if Phoenix discovers evidence for some sort of biochemistry on the surface of Mars
then it has the potential to excite the whole world of astronomical biology. It's a field called astrobiology, to the idea that perhaps there have been living organisms on Mars
in the past and that will be a critical moment because at the moment we know of nowhere else other than the Earth where life has existed
and so to find it on another planet even a next door planet as Mars is, is a huge step for our understanding of the way life might have evolved.
Kerry: Is Australia’s involvement in these sorts of missions still just as important as before such as the 1960’s Apollo moon landing program?
Fred: In general Australia, what Australia has done to contribute to these missions is providing scientists because we don’t directly play a role in them
but you will be amazed how many Australian scientists find their way into organisations like NASA and the European Space Agency
and actually make a big impact on them. Australian science is very vigorous and it's full of new results coming out but what we lack in Australia
is the kind of budgets that you need to mount a space program of the kind that NASA has and so our contribution is really indirect but I think it's growing in fact.
Kerry: How does the Anglo-Australian Telescope contribute to these sorts of international ventures?
Fred: The Anglo-Australian Telescope which is Australia's biggest optical or visible light telescope tends to be involved with programs which are looking beyond the Solar System.
If you want to explore the Solar System the best way to do it is with spacecraft. And there are actually observations that we do make of some things in the Solar System
we were recently observing the planet or the dwarf planet Pluto, for example. But in general our contribution is on the wider field of understanding the way the Universe works,
how our own galaxy that's our home in the Universe. How that's put together, how it's evolved and how the universe at large is built up.
In other words the way galaxies today reflect the history of the Universe. Nevertheless the fact that it's not part and parcel of the Space Program doesn't prevent it from
and indeed the Anglo-Australian Telescope is involved with this kind of thing. It doesn’t prevent it from taking part in large scale international ventures.
So, for example, we’re collaborating with American and British observers on looking for planets going around other stars
and we’re collaborating with many other nationalities in terms of looking at the structure of the universe on the larger scale. So, it’s very much a part of international astronomy.
Summary:
As you watch this video interview with Fred, consider the following questions:
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Kerry: What project are you currently working on?
Fred: The project that occupies most of my time these days is something called RAVE. Which means we’re all ‘ravers.’
RAVE stands for Radial Velocity Experiment and it’s an experiment being carried out not on the Anglo-Australian Telescope
but on its smaller twin the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope, if you can have a smaller twin. It’s a project that lends itself to a smaller telescope.
What we’re doing is we’re measuring the speeds of a million stars and we’re doing that because we want to find out how the motion of stars in the neighbourhood of the sun
reflects what the history of our galaxy is. Our galaxy has gone through quite a turbulent history in its ten billion year life time
and the evidence of that is kind of fossilised in the motion of stars around about the sun and so we’re trying to observe as many of these stars as possible,
see how they’re moving and the result will be an analysis that will tell us a lot about the archaeology of our own galaxy
Kerry: In a recent radio interview Andy Thomas said that we would have a shortage of scientists in Australia by 2012.
How would you encourage us, someone like me, to take a career in astronomy?
I think the thing about astronomy is that it does open up a whole range of possibilities. For young scientists, Astronomy is now, it kind of encompasses
many other disciplines because the field of astrobiology, the search for life beyond the earth, includes chemistry, biology, geophysics, geology, all those are part and parcel
of that field so there is almost a shining light of endeavour that attracts people to it. It’s something that turns students on, the idea of finding life beyond the Earth.
However, I think there are really good reasons for pursuing a career in astronomy other than just what we might discover at the end of it.
It's because astronomy is one of these pursuits that is seen by the public as something that doesn't have any kind of, it doesn't have any sidelines.
It doesn’t have any sort of insidious undertones like to do with you know defence or invasion or anything of that sort.
It's a science that's by and large studies the universe for its own sake. And I think that brings an ethical background to science
that actually people can then take into other areas of human endeavour. What I’m thinking of is that many students who go into astronomy
and do a PhD and perhaps a post doctoral fellowship in astronomy, then go into other areas. Either of government or science or whatever
but they take that sort of ethical background that comes from a study of the universe with them and I think that's a very valuable asset.
As well as the reasons why we do astronomy to find out about what’s out there.
Summary:
As you watch this video interview with Fred, answer the following questions:
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Kerry: What do you see as the future for astronomy in Australia?
Fred: I think Australian astronomy has a very bright future. Within the last year the Australian government has devoted quite substantial sums of money to a project called ASKAP
Fred: and ASKAP stands for Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. And what it is, is a large array of radio telescopes which will be built in Western Australia
Fred: at a place called Mileura Station which is about 350 kilometres from Geraldton. That area is very quiet in the radio region of the spectrum
so it’s a great place to put an array of radio telescopes but, so that’s a good news story in itself for Australian astronomy but what's even better is the prospect
that that might form the nucleus of something called the Square Kilometre Array which is a major international project involving twenty nations
which will take place over the next two decades to build the biggest radio telescope in the world. And it would be fantastic if it comes to Australia
because it will give us the sort of pole position in terms of carrying out the astronomy of the future which is all about determining what the early universe was like.
Looking at the highest energy processes in the universe and perhaps listening for signals from other stars and planets. It’s unlikely but the Square Kilometre Array
might tell us about our neighbours in space as well as the biggest questions about the origins of the universe. Its a very exciting time to be going into astronomy.
Summary:
Fred is not only a great singer and musician but also a songwriter. We hope you enjoy his song, Einstein’s bar.
Captions:
Kerry: Besides astronomy I have heard that you have some musical talent. Would you care to sing us a song?
Fred: I'd be absolutely delighted to Kerry. I'd love to.
Guitar:
Fred sings: I went down to Einstein's bar-room. On the corner by the square. The drinks they were out on the table and the usual crowd was there
I sat down next to Edwin Hubble. His eyes they were bloodshot and red he was drinking down that old rye whiskey and these were the words that he said:
I went up to Mount Wilson Observatory to see my galaxies there. They were stretched halfway out across the universe and the red shifts were proportional to their distances
Ba do wa wa do ah a. Waa, waa, ba do da (repeats)
Let them go, let them go God bless them. Wherever they may be. One day there'll be an Anglo-Australian Telescope to bring my galaxies back to me
When I die take me down to the graveyard, bury my spectrograph next to me. How I wish that I'd had fibre optics and a telescope half as good as the AAT
When I die take me down to the graveyard, bury my spectrograph next to me How I that wish that I’d had fibre optics and a telescope half as good as the AAT.
Thank you (applause)