Bernard Lovell, 1913 – 2012 August 12, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
So much news these days and so little time to deal with it. But hearing that Bernard Lovell, radio astronomer, had died last week was a surprise. To be honest I’d not realised he was still around, but given his centrality to the establishment of Jodrell Bank his was a role of genuine importance.
Here, from wiki, is an interesting footnote to his career from the Cold War period…
In 2009, Lovell spoke of a claimed assassination attempt in Deep-Space Communication Center (Eupatoria) during the Cold War where the Soviets allegedly tried to kill him with a lethal radiation dose. At the time, Lovell was head of the Jodrell Bank space telescope that was also being used as part of an early warning system for Soviet nuclear attacks. Lovell wrote a full account of the incident, to be published only after his death.[21]
I knew Lovell’s son, Bob, a bit about twenty years ago – he lived in Dublin and was a dedicated handicapper of racehorses. He also played cricket, as did Sir Bernard, who invented the light meter that umpires still use to determine whether the light is fit for play.
Really? Small small world.