Wilbur Norman Christiansen Sydney Aug 1952

Wilbur Norman "Chris" Christiansen (9 August 1913 – 26 April 2007) was a pioneer

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

radio astronomer Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

and

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Family

The son of Wilhelm Christiansen (1883-1920), and Ilma Clarice Christiansen (1885-1983), née Jones, Wilbur Norman Christiansen was born in

Elsternwick, Victoria Elsternwick is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 9 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government areas of Victoria ...

on 9 August 1913.Wilbur Norman (Chris) Christiansen (1913-2007), ''CSIROpedia''.
/ref> His father was a minister in the Congregational Church, and his mother a music teacher. In his adult life he was always known as "Chris". He married Elsie Mary Hill, at

Chatswood, New South Wales Chatswood is a major business and residential district in the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 10 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district. It is the administrative centre of the loca ...

in 1938.

Education

Educated at

Caulfield Grammar School Caulfield Grammar School is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican, International Baccalaureate, day school, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as ...

from 1921 to 1930, he entered the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

in 1931, reading Science, and was associated as a non-resident student with

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, where he won an Exhibition in 1932. He graduated Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) (1934), Master of Science (M.Sc.) (1935) winning the Professor Kernot Research Scholarship in Natural Philosophy. and Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) (1953) from the University of Melbourne. Along with

Ronald Drayton Brown Ronald Drayton Brown AM FAA (14 October 1927 – 2 November 2008) was an Australian chemist and academic. In 1959 he was appointed to the Foundation Chair of Chemistry at Monash University where he remained head of the Department until 1992. He w ...

, he was awarded the Syme Prize Medal for 1959.

Career

Christiansen built the first grating array for scanning the

sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

at the radio astronomy field station at

Potts Hill Potts Hill, a suburb of local government area City of Canterbury-Bankstown, is 21 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is a part of the South-western Sydney South We ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. A later array at

Badgerys Creek Badgerys Creek, also known as Badgery's Creek, is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Liverpool. It i ...

, the Chris Cross Telescope, was named after Christiansen. For many years, he was chairman of the electrical engineering department at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

. In 1981 he was made an honorary fellow of the

Institution of Engineers Australia Engineers Australia (EA) is an Australian professional body and not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to advance the science and practice of engineering for the benefit of the community. Engineers Australia is Australia's recognized org ...

Royal Commission on Espionage

On 27 January 1955, Christiansen appeared before the

Royal Commission on Espionage The Royal Commission on Espionage was a royal commission established on 13 April 1954 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report on Soviet espionage in Australia. The establishment of the ...

. He was extensively questioned in relation to his own political orientation, the influence of certain of his wife's siblings one of whom had the

code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

"Tourist" and, in particular, in relation to the fact that he was not only mentioned in secret Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (M.V.D.) documents turned over to the Australian authorities by Vladimir Petrov, but also had been of such interest to the Russians that they had given him the unique

of "Master". It was determined that there was no grounds for any suspicion of him ever having any connexion with the M.V.D.; and, in the process of his examination, the counsel assisting the Commission,

George Pape Sir George Augustus Pape (29 January 1903 – 15 June 1987) was an Australian lawyer and judge. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1955 and a judge in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1957. He was knighted in 1968 and retired from the Supreme Court i ...

, produced statements from both Mr. and Mrs. Petrov asserting that Christiansen was not known to them at all.Radio Astronomer Questioned at Royal Commission, ''The Canberra Times'', (Friday 28 January 1995), p.5.
/ref>

Death

He died on 26 April 2007 in Dorrigo,

, near his son Tim and his brother Steven. His wife Elspeth died in 2001 and their son Peter, also a space physicist, died in 1992.

Notes

References

External links

Biographical entry
Encyclopedia of Australian Science
Comprehensive biography
CSIROpedia

Eric Weisstein's World of Biography

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

, 24 May 2007
Obituary
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wilbur Norman Christiansen 1913–2007
R.H. Frater and W.M. Goss, Cornell University Library, arXiv
Christiansen, W. N. (Wilbur Norman)

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

Trove Trove is an Australian online library database owned by the National Library of Australia in which it holds partnerships with source providers National and State Libraries Australia, an aggregator and service which includes full text document ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Wilbur Norman 1913 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Australian astronomers People educated at Caulfield Grammar School People educated at Trinity College (University of Melbourne) University of Sydney faculty Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Radio astronomers People from Elsternwick, Victoria Engineers from Melbourne Scientists from Melbourne