Sir Bernard Lovell

historybuff, on July 30, 2007, said:

Over 3000 free to view historic Bristol photographs visit my website www.bristolhistory.com

historybuff, on August 3, 2007, said:

Born in Oldland Common, Bristol, he studied physics at the University of Bristol, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1936. He worked in the cosmic ray research team at the University of Manchester until the outbreak of World War II, during which he worked for the TRE developing radar systems to be installed in aircraft, for which he received an OBE in 1946.

He attempted to continue cosmic ray work with an ex-military radar unit and following interference from trams on Manchester's Oxford Road moved to Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey in Cheshire, an outpost of the university's botany department. He was able to show that radar echoes could be obtained from daytime meteor showers. With university funding he constructed the then-largest steerable radio telescope in the world, which now bears his name - the Lovell Telescope. Nearly 50 years later, it remains one of the foremost radio telescopes in the world.

He was knighted in 1961 for his important contributions to the development of radio astronomy, and has a secondary school named after him in his home village of Oldland Common Bristol. A building on the QinetiQ site in Malvern is also named after him.

The first name of the fictional scientist Bernard Quatermass, the hero of several BBC Television science-fiction serials of the 1950s, was chosen in honour of Lovell.