Karl Jansky

Karl Guthe Jansky was born in the territory of Oklahoma. When he was born, his father was the Dean of an engineering school in Oklahoma. This undoubtedly influenced him to enter the profession which he later did. His father's love for physics led his son to follow in his father's footsteps. He received his BS in physics in 1927 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He began working at Bell laboratories to investigate the effects of short waves with atmospheric pressure to be applied to telephone communication. Jansky created an antenna to detect radio waves from the frequency of 20.5 Mhz. He mounted it on a rotating turntable that allowed the antenna to point in any direction and pinpoint a signal. He found three different kind of radio data with the antenna. Near thunderstorms, far thunderstorms, and a low hiss that was always around. The hiss had an intensity whose maximum rose and fell once a day. This led to his original theory of detecting the sun. However, he found it was in accordance with the sidereal day instead of the solar day. The strongest signal met up with the center of the constellation saggitarius, and the center of the milky way. He began publishing papers and appeared in the newspaper in 1933. This was essentially the only work he was able to do with astronomy, and was denied future funding for radio research. He was not necessarily regarded as correct for awhile because of his little training as an astronomer. His observations were also made in a time of economic turmoil in america and were neither important to the people nor ready to be risked. Eventually this was followed up by Grote Reber who advanced Radio Astronomy greatly. Jansky died at the age of only 44 in New Jersey from a heart condition.