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Probing the Sky with Radio Waves From Wireless Technology to the Development of Atmospheric Science

By: Chen-Pang Yeang(Author)
360 pages, 3 b/w photos, 68 b/w illustrations
Probing the Sky with Radio Waves
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  • Probing the Sky with Radio Waves ISBN: 9780226274393 Paperback May 2015 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
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About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles

About this book

By the late nineteenth century, engineers and experimental scientists generally knew how radio waves behaved, and by 1901 scientists were able to manipulate them to transmit messages across long distances. What no one could understand, however, was why radio waves followed the curvature of the Earth. Theorists puzzled over this for nearly twenty years before physicists confirmed the zig-zag theory, a solution that led to the discovery of a layer in the Earth's upper atmosphere that bounces radio waves earthward – the ionosphere.

In Probing the Sky with Radio Waves, Chen-Pang Yeang documents this monumental discovery and the advances in radio ionospheric propagation research that occurred in its aftermath. Yeang illustrates how the discovery of the ionosphere transformed atmospheric science from what had been primarily an observational endeavor into an experimental science. It also gave researchers a host of new theories, experiments, and instruments with which to better understand the atmosphere's constitution, the origin of atmospheric electricity, and how the sun and geomagnetism shape the Earth's atmosphere. Probing the Sky with Radio Waves will be warmly welcomed by scholars of astronomy, atmospheric science, geoscience, military and institutional history, and the history and philosophy of science and technology, as well as by radio amateurs and electrical engineers interested in historical perspectives on their craft.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction: From Propagation Studies to Active Sensors
     From Propagation Studies to Active Sensing: Experiment and Theory
          Field Experiments and Direct Evidence
          Epistemic Status of Theories
     Where This Book Fits In
     Outline of Chapters
     A Note on Units

PART I: Conceiving Long-Range Propagation, 1901-1919

Chapter 2: Theorizing Transatlantic Wireless with Surface Diffraction
          European Theoretical Physicists and Wave Propagation
     Surface Diffraction Theory in Britain and France
          Macdonald’s Initiative
          Rayleigh’s Coup
          Poincaré’s Formula
          Nicholson’s Numbers
     Surface Diffraction Theory in Germany
          Antenna Directivity and Zenneck’s Surface Waves
          Sommerfeld’s Refinement of Surface Waves

Chapter 3: The U.S. Navy and the Austin-Cohen Formula
     A Naval Wireless Laboratory
     The Experiment
     The Formula

Chapter 4: Synthesis with Atmospheric Reflection
     Surface Diffraction after Austin-Cohen
          The German Story
          A New Experiment
          The British Response
     Atmospheric Reflection Theory
          Kennelly-Heaviside Layer
          Eccles’s Ionic Refraction
     Watson’s Synthesis and Its Acceptance
          The 1918 and 1919 Papers
          Consolidating the Watson-Austin-Cohen Paradigm

PART II: Discovering the Ionosphere, 1920-1926

Chapter 5: Radio Amateurs Launch the Short-Wave Era
     American Radio Amateurs in the Early Twentieth Century
     Fading Experiments
          Standard Experimental Procedure and Data Format
     Setting the Stage for Transatlantic Experiments
     Transatlantic Experiments
          The First Trial
          The Second Trial
          The Third Trial
          The Two-Way Test and the Fourth Trial

Chapter 6: From the Skip Zone to Magneto-Ionic Refraction
     Discovering the Skip Zone and Short-Wave Data
          Albert Hoyt Taylor and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
          Discovery of the Skip Zone
          More Comprehensive Range Data at High Frequencies
     Magneto-Ionic Theory for Short Waves
          Eccles’s Ionic Refraction Theory
          Larmor’s Ionic Refraction Theory
          Effects of Geomagnetism: Nichols, Schelleng, and Appleton
          Explaining the Skip Zone: Taylor and Hulburt

Chapter 7: British Radio Research and the Moments of Discovery
          Direct Evidence, Sounding-Echo Experiments, Operational Realism
          A British System of Radio Ionospheric Research
     Direction Finding, Wave Polarization, and the Ionosphere
          Loop Direction Finders and Their Problems
          Thomas Eckersley’s Work on Polarization
          National Physical Laboratory, Radio Research Board, and Reginald Leslie Smith-Rose    
          Smith-Rose and Barfield’s Experiment
     Frequency-Change Experiments and Discovering the Ionosphere
          Edward Victor Appleton
          The Frequency-Change Experiment
          Smith-Rose and Barfield Try Again
          Improving Direction Finding as a By-product

Chapter 8: Pulse Echo, CIW, and Radio Probing of the Ionosphere
     Pulse-Echo Experiments in the United States
          Carnegie Institution of Washington, Gregory Breit, Merle Tuve
          Pulsed Radio Sounding of the Ionosphere
          The Meaning of Height
     The Ionosphere has a Structure
          Appleton’s Program of Ionospheric Sounding
          The Discovery of the F Layer

PART III: Theory Matters, 1926-1935

Chapter 9: Consolidating a General Magneto-Ionic Theory
     Generalizing the Magneto-Ionic Theory
          Appleton and Altar’s Derivation
          Lassen’s Derivation
          Goldstein’s Derivation
     Measuring Polarization in Both Hemispheres
          A Polarimetric Experiment
          More Polarization Research in Both Hemispheres
     A Mathematical Inquiry into the General Magneto-Ionic Theory

Chapter 10: Handling Microphysics
     The Lorentz Correction
          Origin of the Concept
          Douglas Hartree and the Lorentz Correction in Ionic Refraction
          A Microphysical Controversy without Microphysics
          Where Was the Empirical Evidence?
     The Quasi-Elastic Force
          Measuring the Dielectric Constant of Ionized Air
          A Propagation Theory from Tabletop Experiments
          Anatomy of a Debate
          Death of a Theory

PART IV: Conclusion

Chapter 11: A New Way of Seeing the World
          From Wave Propagation Studies to Ionosphere Probing
           A Case History for Active Sensing

Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Chen-Pang Yeang is associate professor in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto.

By: Chen-Pang Yeang(Author)
360 pages, 3 b/w photos, 68 b/w illustrations
Media reviews

"Probing the Sky with Radio Waves offers us a fine example of the 'mutual shaping' of science and technology. Those interested in a thoughtful, technically adept history of the discovery of the ionosphere will not be disappointed. Yet this book offers much more. Chen-Pang Yeang deftly draws out the diverse international array of local cultures that made the discovery possible: mathematical, theoretical, and experimental physicists; civilian, military, and corporate engineers; inventors and radio amateurs. The story is a fascinating one, and Yeang – coupling the history and philosophy of science – is an able narrator."
- Suman Seth, Cornell University

"Chen-Pang Yeang's book is the major contribution to our knowledge of how physical theory and electrical experimentation worked together to explain the movement of radio waves beyond the horizon – a compelling question in the years following Marconi's famous experiment of 1901. Yeang clearly explains how 'direct evidence' for the existence of the ionosphere was ultimately provided and reminds us of how important work in classical physics continued into the exciting era of relativity and quantum mechanics. What he describes is a rare mix of physics and electrical engineering encountering the 'field sciences.'"
- A. David Wunsch, University of Massachusetts Lowell

 

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