Robert Hanbury Brown, AC FRS (31 August 1916 – 16 January 2002) was a British

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

born in Aruvankadu, India. He made notable contributions to the development of

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

and later conducted pioneering work in the field of

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies Astronomical object, celestial objects using radio waves. It started in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observat ...

. With

Richard Q. Twiss Richard Quintin Twiss (24 August 1920 – 20 May 2005) was a British astronomer. He is known for his work on the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect with Robert Hanbury Brown. It led to the development of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss intensity interferomete ...

he developed the

Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect In physics, the Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) effect is any of a variety of correlation and anti-correlation effects in the intensity (physics), intensities received by two detectors from a beam of particles. HBT effects can generally be attribut ...

leading to the creation of intensity interferometers. Hanbury Brown was one of the main designers of the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer and received a number of honours and awards for his work.

Early years

Hanbury Brown was born in Aruvankadu, the Nilgiris, British India in 1916, the son of an army officer. At age 8 he was sent to England to attend Cottesmore preparatory school in

Hove Hove ( ) is a seaside resort in East Sussex, England. Alongside Brighton, it is one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove. Originally a fishing village surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th century in respon ...

, where he was educated in primarily non-scientific subjects. In 1930, at age 14, Hanbury Brown went on to attend

Tonbridge School Tonbridge School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for boys aged 13–18) in Tonbridge, Kent, England, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judde (sometimes spelt Judd). It is a member of the Eton Group and has clo ...

in Kent for only two years before changing to Brighton Technical College. Though originally planning to become a

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

scholar, the change to a technical college came due to influences from those around him. His grandfather, Sir Robert Hanbury Brown, K.C.M.G., a notable irrigation engineer, was also one of the early pioneers of radio, and following Hanbury Brown's parents' divorce, his legal guardian was a consulting radio engineer. At Brighton Technical College, Hanbury Brown studied for an external

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

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

from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, which he received at the age of 19. At this time he also published his first paper, 'Lamp polar curves on the cathode-ray oscillograph'.

Career

Though initially planning to study for a Ph.D. at

Imperial College, London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, Hanbury Brown drew the attention of

Henry Tizard Sir Henry Thomas Tizard (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the fir ...

. Tizard recruited Hanbury Brown to work for what would become the

Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...

Chain Home Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the off ...

in 1936, where he worked until 1942; after this he spent 3 years in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

to work with the Combined Research Group at the

Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...

developing the Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar which he and John William Sutton Pringle originally invented. By 1947 a consultancy that had been set up by Sir

Robert Watson-Watt Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt (13 April 1892 – 5 December 1973) was a Scottish radio engineer and pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology. Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Met Office, where he be ...

, the father of radar, offered more interesting prospects for the conversion of wartime developments into peacetime technologies. Hanbury Brown was recruited and worked as a consulting engineer until Watson-Watt moved the firm to Canada. After considering his career possibilities, Hanbury Brown joined Bernard Lovell's radio astronomy group at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

in 1949 to work on his PhD. At the University of Manchester, Hanbury Brown worked with Cyril Hazard to modify the 218-ft radio telescope built for the study of

cosmic rays Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar ...

into a fully functioning radio telescope. Using it they showed, among other things, that radio waves were being emitted from the

Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromeda has a Galaxy#Isophotal diameter, D25 isop ...

; proving that such emissions were not just from our own galaxy. After completion of the

Lovell Telescope The Lovell Telescope ( ) is a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire, in the north-west of England. When construction was finished in 1957, the telescope was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world a ...

Hanbury was among those who used it to discover

quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...

s. Hanbury Brown is primarily known for his work on

interferometry Interferometry is a technique which uses the ''interference (wave propagation), interference'' of Superposition principle, superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important inves ...

, in particular the

which led to intensity interferometers. Despite opposition from some in the scientific community who argued that his predictions violated the

laws of physics Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...

, Hanbury Brown and Twiss showed that their theory was correct through a number of observations. In 1962 Hanbury Brown moved to Australia to work at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. There he built his next interferometer – the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer – in a sheep paddock outside

Narrabri Narrabri ( ) is a locality and seat of Narrabri Shire Local government in Australia, local government area in the North West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia on the Namoi River, northwest of Sydney. It sits on the junction of the Kamilaroi Hi ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, consisting of two 23 ft telescopes. Using it, Hanbury Brown succeeded in measuring the diameters of 32 stars, thus producing the first

empirical Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how t ...

temperature scale for hot stars. Despite only aiming to stay in Australia for two years, he stayed for a total of 27; going on to receive the Companion of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

honour in 1986 for his work.

Personal life

Hanbury Brown married Heather Hilda Chesterman in 1952 with whom he had one daughter and two sons (twins). He was rumoured to have prompted the term boffin. In 1990, Hanbury Brown was interviewed by Caroline Jones on her

Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...

program, The Search for Meaning. Hanbury Brown died in

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andov ...

, Hampshire on 16 January 2002.

Honours and awards

He won the

Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize The Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize is a major European prize for Physics awarded jointly every year by the British Institute of Physics (IOP) and the Société Française de Physique (SFP). It is one of the four Grand Prix of the SFP and one of ...

in 1959. In March 1960 he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

of London and in 1971 was awarded their

Hughes Medal The Hughes Medal is a silver-gilt medal awarded by the Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. T ...

for " his efforts in developing the optical stellar intensity interferometer and for his observations of

Spica Spica is the brightest object in the constellation of Virgo and one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation α Virginis, which is Latinised to Alpha Virginis and abbreviated Alpha Vir or α Vir. Analys ...

". In 1968, he received the

Eddington Medal The Eddington Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. It is named after Sir Arthur Eddington. First awarded in 1953, the frequency of the prize has varied over the ye ...

jointly with Twiss (see

). He also won the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal of the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

in 1972. In 1982 he was named President of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

, a title he retained until the end of his term in 1985. In 1986 he was appointed Companion of the

. He was awarded the Albert A. Michelson Medal of the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and a center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and wikt:statesman, statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin ...

in 1982, jointly with

and the Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture the same year.

Publications

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'' * Hanbury Brown and Twiss, Nature, Vol. 178, pp. 1046 1956 * Hanbury Brown et al., 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'' . * Hanbury Brown, ''The Wisdom of Science – its relevance to Culture & Religion'' (). Hanbury Brown is author of 127 articles and other scientific works, published over a 67-year period of activity (1935–2002). The full list of his contributions can be found in a document made available by the Royal Society Publishing Organisation, at the following url: http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/49/83/suppl/DC1 The Hanbury Brown Papers were catalogued by Anna-K Mayer and Tim Powell, NCUACS, and have been deposited with the Royal Society, London.

Early years

Career

Personal life

Honours and awards

Publications

References

Further reading