There Is No Cat - Silence, please

The alternative to flowers!

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Silence, please

Interesting article from Reuters about the National Radio Quiet Zone in West Virginia, where even microwave ovens are a problem. There's a giant radio telescope there, so great efforts are made to ensure that the electrically-noisy devices that wreak such havoc with the radio spectrum don't disrupt the scientific activities. Radio stations in surrounding areas have to beam their signal away from the telescope. Scientists use spark plug-free diesel vehicles when approaching the computer. And sometimes the biggest problem can be a dog's heating pad. (Thanks Dan Say on the swprograms mailing list.) Incidentally, I used to work at the birthplace of radio astronomy in Holmdel, New Jersey. I love the fact that there's now a monument in the shape of the first radio astronomy antenna at the exact location where signals from space were first heard.

Posted at 11:54 PM

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What do you mean there is no cat?

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

- Albert Einstein, explaining radio