Grote Reber

Grote Reber
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Name	Grote Reber
Caption	Grote Reber with his parabolic radio telescope in Wheaton, Illinois, c. 1937
Birth date	22 December 1911
Birth place	Wheaton, Illinois, U.S.
Death date	20 December 2002
Death place	Tasmania, Australia
Fields	Radio astronomy
Alma mater	Armour Institute of Technology
Known for	Building the first parabolic radio telescope; first radio sky surveys

Grote Reber. He was an American pioneer of radio astronomy, constructing the world's first dedicated parabolic radio telescope in his backyard in 1937. His meticulous sky surveys produced the first radio maps of the Milky Way, fundamentally proving that celestial objects emitted radio waves and establishing a new field of astronomical observation. Reber's solitary work bridged the initial discovery of cosmic radio waves by Karl Jansky and the post-war explosion of the discipline.

Early life and education

Born in Wheaton, Illinois, Reber developed an early fascination with radio technology and amateur ("ham") radio. He pursued a formal education in electrical engineering at the Armour Institute of Technology (now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology), graduating in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression. After working for several radio manufacturers in Chicago, including Stewart-Warner and the Hazeltine Corporation, he became intrigued by the 1933 report of Karl Jansky's detection of cosmic static from the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Frustrated by the lack of professional astronomical follow-up to Jansky's discovery, Reber decided to independently investigate these mysterious signals using his own expertise and resources.

Radio astronomy pioneer

In 1937, using his own savings, Reber constructed a 31.4-foot parabolic dish telescope in his mother's backyard in Wheaton, Illinois; this instrument is now recognized as the first purpose-built radio telescope. He initially experimented with a receiver at 3300 MHz, but after detecting nothing, he systematically moved to longer wavelengths, finally confirming Jansky's discovery at 160 MHz in 1939. Throughout the early 1940s, he conducted the first systematic radio frequency survey of the sky, meticulously plotting the intensity of radio emissions. His work, published in the Astrophysical Journal and Proceedings of the IRE, produced the first radio contour maps of the Milky Way, identifying the bright source in the constellation Sagittarius at the galactic center and the strong source in Cygnus. These foundational observations were conducted largely in isolation, without the support of major institutions like the Mount Wilson Observatory or Yerkes Observatory.

Later work and legacy

After World War II, as large institutions such as the CSIRO in Australia and the Jodrell Bank Observatory in England entered radio astronomy, Reber pursued increasingly independent and unconventional research. He investigated ultra-long wavelength radio waves, requiring him to relocate to areas with minimal radio interference, first to Sterling, Virginia, and then permanently to Tasmania, Australia in 1954. In Tasmania, he built extensive arrays to study frequencies below 2 MHz, a region largely unexplored due to ionospheric absorption. His later theories often challenged mainstream cosmology, particularly his advocacy for a non-expanding, steady-state universe based on his low-frequency findings, which placed him at odds with the prevailing Big Bang theory supported by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. His original telescope is now housed at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.

Honors and awards

Reber's foundational contributions were widely recognized by the scientific community. He received the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1962 and the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1975. The Royal Society of London awarded him the Jackson-Gwilt Medal in 1983. In 1987, he was named a Foreign Member of the Royal Astronomical Society. His name is immortalized in the Reber Medal, awarded for lifetime contributions to radio astronomy by the Grote Reber Foundation, and through the asteroid 6886 Grote Reber. He was also honored with the John Price Wetherill Medal from the Franklin Institute.

Category:American radio astronomers Category:1911 births Category:2002 deaths