Sue Heinemann painted my portrait in March 2009
Adelaide the City of Churches
Thank you Sue
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Nicholas Fourikis, another portrait
Nicholas Fourikis, another portrait.
Sue Heinemann painted my portrait in March 2009
Adelaide the City of Churches
Thank you Sue
Sue Heinemann painted my portrait in March 2009
Adelaide the City of Churches
Thank you Sue
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Desalination plants utilizing solar / wind power
Desalination plants utilizing solar / wind power
Q & A Inputs for the ABC Program chaired by Tony Jones
Preamble
We are now experiencing a global economic downturn and serious environmental concerns about the future of the planet. The obvious solution to both problems is to invest in the construction of minimal cost Green Projects that yield everlasting benefits.
The question
In that context why do we spend money toward cleaning coal (a pie in the sky project) and insulating homes when we could be spending money constructing Green Desalination Plants that utilize wind and / or solar energy?
Background information
The Kwinana desalination plant located just south of Perth yields 140,000m3 of drinking water per day and is powered by 48 wind turbines located in the Emu Downs Wind farm. The attractive features of this Green Desalination Plant are:
(i) The technology is available NOW.
(ii) The energy is renewable
(iii) The construction of several Green Desalination Plants would employ thousands of construction workers / engineers / scientists.
(iv) The water can be utilized for irrigating large areas of land also, thus producing more crops.
(v) The benefits are everlasting and very visible – Such projects can easily be the Snowy Mountain Schemes of the 21st century
(vi) Additional benefits are the generation of electricity. The Emu Downs Wind Farms for instance generates 270 GWh/year but the Kwinana Green Desalination Plant uses only 180 GWh/year.
A proposal for the construction of the Point Paterson Green Desalination Plant utilizing solar energy near Port Augusta, in South Australia is in the planning stage but capital for its construction (estimated about 450million$ ) is not forthcoming. The plant is to produce 5.5 gigalitres of water per year.
Australia, the sunburn country, has cheap coal and abundant sunshine. Wind power is also available for harnessing in many parts of the country. Cleaning coal is not a technology we possess now while the technologies for harnessing solar / wind power are available now.
Q & A Inputs for the ABC Program chaired by Tony Jones
Preamble
We are now experiencing a global economic downturn and serious environmental concerns about the future of the planet. The obvious solution to both problems is to invest in the construction of minimal cost Green Projects that yield everlasting benefits.
The question
In that context why do we spend money toward cleaning coal (a pie in the sky project) and insulating homes when we could be spending money constructing Green Desalination Plants that utilize wind and / or solar energy?
Background information
The Kwinana desalination plant located just south of Perth yields 140,000m3 of drinking water per day and is powered by 48 wind turbines located in the Emu Downs Wind farm. The attractive features of this Green Desalination Plant are:
(i) The technology is available NOW.
(ii) The energy is renewable
(iii) The construction of several Green Desalination Plants would employ thousands of construction workers / engineers / scientists.
(iv) The water can be utilized for irrigating large areas of land also, thus producing more crops.
(v) The benefits are everlasting and very visible – Such projects can easily be the Snowy Mountain Schemes of the 21st century
(vi) Additional benefits are the generation of electricity. The Emu Downs Wind Farms for instance generates 270 GWh/year but the Kwinana Green Desalination Plant uses only 180 GWh/year.
A proposal for the construction of the Point Paterson Green Desalination Plant utilizing solar energy near Port Augusta, in South Australia is in the planning stage but capital for its construction (estimated about 450million$ ) is not forthcoming. The plant is to produce 5.5 gigalitres of water per year.
Australia, the sunburn country, has cheap coal and abundant sunshine. Wind power is also available for harnessing in many parts of the country. Cleaning coal is not a technology we possess now while the technologies for harnessing solar / wind power are available now.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Creative use of cliches
To cliché or not to cliché, that is not the question.
An essay
Nicholas Fourikis
‘I’m a Nazi when I see clichés,’ Helen told me the other day. Is she right or should I assume she has a blind spot?
Helen is a long standing friend. She is also an interesting writer with a degree in creative writing under her belt. I admire her in many ways but she can’t stand anyone using clichés.
In many ways she is right because clichés express something that has become overly familiar or common place, stale, stereotypical and timeworn. Writers are supposed to be creative, and we are expected not to use words that have a timeworn ring to them.
As John Simon notes in Paradigms Lost, Vanity of a peacock is to imagery what a twenty-times-used blade is to shaving.
‘I love the twinkle in your eyes.’ Is a tired cliché that is too generic to be useful? It could apply to a cockatoo, for instance.
The trouble is that we all use clichés in our conversations. It’s natural therefore to allow our characters to use clichés. Moreover the clichés our characters use define their socioeconomic milieu, their frustrations or exhilarations. In many ways clichés reveal character.
Writing a novel without using clichés would be like describing a world that has no cultural resonances. In a less abstract way our book would be like a beautiful empty house waiting for carpets and pictures. It would have all possibilities. It could become a palace or a brothel.
If there was a way we can use clichés creatively we will have the best of all possible worlds. No one could accuse us of not being creative and we would be mining the cultural treasures clichés offer. Is this quest a pie in the sky misadventure? The answer is a firm and unequivocal “No.”
In passing, and it’s only in passing, did you notice how creative Simon was with the title of his book Paradigms Lost? (Remember Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost?)
If this example is too literary try the following:
She is the cow in the ointment.
It was lust at first bite.
He is a legend in his soup.
These are clichés that some creative writer tweaked – twichés. Here are some more from reference [1]
A media guru described Madonna’s latest diet Footloose and Fat-Free.
George W Bush has gone from abject wealth to riches, Jon Stewart quipped.
A legend in his own mind
‘A good tweak,’ the author of reference [1] writes, ‘leads readers one way, then jerks them into the delight-giving realm of surprise.’
Is that all we can do to infuse life into timeworn clichés? Definetely “Not” because creativity knows no bounds.
Tom Skinner an Australian author wrote Round Fish, Square Bowl - a children’s book full of clichés [2]. It’s OK to be different was the message of Tom’s book.
As you can imagine I cannot reproduce all his clichés in this essay but here are some samples that would elate you.
If you are as slow as a tortoise don’t worry because the tortoise often beats the hare.
If you are mad as a hatter, the madder the merrier.
If you are an ugly duckling, remember ugly ducklings turn into beautiful swans.
I’m sure you get the drift of Tom’s beautifully illustrated book. Parenthetically it is worth noting Tom abandoned his boring day job, sold his house, and educated himself to become a great writer. He dedicated his book
To Mum
For the immovable belief that being different was my virtue rather than my millstone.
Thank you Tom and Helen. Nazi or not I owe her a lot for inspiring me to take time off and reflect on clichés.
[1] A. Plotnik. Twist worn expressions into winners. The Writer. Aug 2006. p15
[2] T. Skinner. Round fish, square bowl. 2006. New Frontier Publishing
An essay
Nicholas Fourikis
‘I’m a Nazi when I see clichés,’ Helen told me the other day. Is she right or should I assume she has a blind spot?
Helen is a long standing friend. She is also an interesting writer with a degree in creative writing under her belt. I admire her in many ways but she can’t stand anyone using clichés.
In many ways she is right because clichés express something that has become overly familiar or common place, stale, stereotypical and timeworn. Writers are supposed to be creative, and we are expected not to use words that have a timeworn ring to them.
As John Simon notes in Paradigms Lost, Vanity of a peacock is to imagery what a twenty-times-used blade is to shaving.
‘I love the twinkle in your eyes.’ Is a tired cliché that is too generic to be useful? It could apply to a cockatoo, for instance.
The trouble is that we all use clichés in our conversations. It’s natural therefore to allow our characters to use clichés. Moreover the clichés our characters use define their socioeconomic milieu, their frustrations or exhilarations. In many ways clichés reveal character.
Writing a novel without using clichés would be like describing a world that has no cultural resonances. In a less abstract way our book would be like a beautiful empty house waiting for carpets and pictures. It would have all possibilities. It could become a palace or a brothel.
If there was a way we can use clichés creatively we will have the best of all possible worlds. No one could accuse us of not being creative and we would be mining the cultural treasures clichés offer. Is this quest a pie in the sky misadventure? The answer is a firm and unequivocal “No.”
In passing, and it’s only in passing, did you notice how creative Simon was with the title of his book Paradigms Lost? (Remember Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost?)
If this example is too literary try the following:
She is the cow in the ointment.
It was lust at first bite.
He is a legend in his soup.
These are clichés that some creative writer tweaked – twichés. Here are some more from reference [1]
A media guru described Madonna’s latest diet Footloose and Fat-Free.
George W Bush has gone from abject wealth to riches, Jon Stewart quipped.
A legend in his own mind
‘A good tweak,’ the author of reference [1] writes, ‘leads readers one way, then jerks them into the delight-giving realm of surprise.’
Is that all we can do to infuse life into timeworn clichés? Definetely “Not” because creativity knows no bounds.
Tom Skinner an Australian author wrote Round Fish, Square Bowl - a children’s book full of clichés [2]. It’s OK to be different was the message of Tom’s book.
As you can imagine I cannot reproduce all his clichés in this essay but here are some samples that would elate you.
If you are as slow as a tortoise don’t worry because the tortoise often beats the hare.
If you are mad as a hatter, the madder the merrier.
If you are an ugly duckling, remember ugly ducklings turn into beautiful swans.
I’m sure you get the drift of Tom’s beautifully illustrated book. Parenthetically it is worth noting Tom abandoned his boring day job, sold his house, and educated himself to become a great writer. He dedicated his book
To Mum
For the immovable belief that being different was my virtue rather than my millstone.
Thank you Tom and Helen. Nazi or not I owe her a lot for inspiring me to take time off and reflect on clichés.
[1] A. Plotnik. Twist worn expressions into winners. The Writer. Aug 2006. p15
[2] T. Skinner. Round fish, square bowl. 2006. New Frontier Publishing
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The 8th International Conference on Greek Research
The abstract of a paper I am to present to the 8th International Conference on Greek Research. To be held at Frinders University in South Australia from the 2nd to the 5th July 2009.
Aristarchus and Hipparchus
Nicholas Fourikis PhD
Aristarchus the Samian (310-230 BCE) proposed the Heliocentric System because he could not conceive that the Sun, a massive star, rotates around tiny Earth. Cleanthes, a philosopher, thought the Greeks ought to prosecute Aristarchus for setting the Earth in motion.
Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BCE) assembled the first catalogue of 1000 stars with their magnitudes and calculated the distance between Earth and the Sun.
His crowning achievement was the calculation of the precession of the Earth’s axis using his observations, the observations of Timocharis & Aristillus taken 150 years before his time and the observations of the Babylonians taken over 2000 years.
His calculation of the precession was astonishingly close to the correct value of 50.26 arc seconds.
Aristarchus pursued high risk / high yield research while Hipparchus pursued low risk / high yield research.
2009 is the Year of Astronomy
Aristarchus and Hipparchus
Nicholas Fourikis PhD
Aristarchus the Samian (310-230 BCE) proposed the Heliocentric System because he could not conceive that the Sun, a massive star, rotates around tiny Earth. Cleanthes, a philosopher, thought the Greeks ought to prosecute Aristarchus for setting the Earth in motion.
Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BCE) assembled the first catalogue of 1000 stars with their magnitudes and calculated the distance between Earth and the Sun.
His crowning achievement was the calculation of the precession of the Earth’s axis using his observations, the observations of Timocharis & Aristillus taken 150 years before his time and the observations of the Babylonians taken over 2000 years.
His calculation of the precession was astonishingly close to the correct value of 50.26 arc seconds.
Aristarchus pursued high risk / high yield research while Hipparchus pursued low risk / high yield research.
2009 is the Year of Astronomy
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Nicholas Fourikis Portrait
Sue Heinemann, a recent friend, organised five painters to "do" me in March 2009. I sat in front of them for a total of five hours with short intervals.All portraits were excellent but I could only afford the portrait done by Michael Hocking.Apart from being an excellent portrait painter Michael is also a phychologist. A very gifted young man. indeed.
Thank you Sue and Michael
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Molecular Radioastronomy Conference photo
With Professor HF Weaver of Berkeley University at an International Conference on Molecular Radioastronomy held in Australia in 1973Hypatia of Alexandria
Hypatia of Alexandria was the foremost lady with significant contributions to Science and Philosophy. She was killed at the dawn of the fifth century CE by Christian monks.
Friday, February 13, 2009
"Hollywood Amarroo" Book Launch
With Kate Ellis Federal Member for Adelaide and Minister for Sports and Recreation during the launch of my book
Hollywood Amarroo
The book can be purchased from
Mostly Books
Mitcham Square
119 Belair Road
SA 5062
Tel (08) 8373 5190
My Beloved
My Beloved
I want to tell you.
I want to tell the world
Of my beloved but I can’t
How can I capture
The Spring of her smile
Or the Christmas
Of our love
Using words made up
Of letters from a dead alphabet?
But I can tell you.
I can tell the world that
When we talk,
The petty world we know
Does not exist and
The boundaries between us
Are blurred.
We are free as if in a dream
But we are bonded
By the wireless wires of our love
I want to tell you.
I want to tell the world
Of my beloved but I can’t
How can I capture
The Spring of her smile
Or the Christmas
Of our love
Using words made up
Of letters from a dead alphabet?
But I can tell you.
I can tell the world that
When we talk,
The petty world we know
Does not exist and
The boundaries between us
Are blurred.
We are free as if in a dream
But we are bonded
By the wireless wires of our love
The quest for quality writing
The quest for quality writing
Some writers believe that PR and PR alone, is enough to propel them to success, but I doubt it. Quality is and will always be what readers and editors seek but let me digress a little.
Many moons ago commercial enterprises learned that quality is:
(i) What beats the competition; and
(ii) The costs related to attaining quality are minimal.
That is how the Quality Movement started. The CEO of an enterprise sets the benchmarks for quality and all employees strive to reach these benchmarks. As soon as the enterprise reaches the benchmarks, the CEO raises the bar and this happens continually. The tacit assumption here is that PR alone is not enough to bust the competition but it helps.
Is there a limit beyond which an enterprise cannot improve the quality of its services / products? Of course there is for many enterprises but not for the Learning Enterprises. Because in a learning enterprise the employees gain new skills along the way. And armed with these extra skills they reach the benchmarks set by the CEO. Conversely enterprises that do not increase the skills of their employees can hit a glass wall or a plateau in their quest for quality improvements.
Quality in writing is easily recognized and appreciated. Editors / readers for instance recognize quality of a manuscript by reading the first two to three paragraphs. Borrowing from the quality movement only the learning writer is destined to succeed.
How do we improve the quality of our writing skills? That is a question of interest for all of us.
Experiental learning is great. You learn the writing skills by writing and by subjecting your work to critique sessions. You invite everyone to critique your work. You don’t have to accept everything they suggest but the bits you accept are manna from the gods. More importantly critique sessions keep you humble.
In more general terms experiental writing helps you find your voice. One of my friends claims that you find your voice only after you have written a million words. It might be an exaggeration but it is a view worth remembering.
Reading novels can be rewarding too if you ask the following questions:
(i) What did I learn from the first and last Chapters? After reading the first chapter did the writer convince me to suspend disbelief? Did the last chapter help me decide the book was a great read?
(ii) Did the writer achieve a balance between telling and showing? Here it is worth remembering that if the writer shows everything her book would have 1000 pages!
(iii) How about descriptions? Before the television era, descriptions were mandatory, long and detailed. After many years of television, descriptions are succinct. So succinct in fact that many writers weave descriptive passages into the plot. Was the book full of memorable descriptions but the plot tenuous?
(iv) Am I happy with the length of her sentences? Did she mix short and long sentences or did she use long and longer sentences? Or short and shorter sentences? Short sentences are ideal to describe action i.e. a fight, a love scene, or a chase but if you use short sentences only you would end up with pages and pages of telegraphic English. For narrative a mixture of long and short sentences is appealing and revise sentences longer than say 30 words. One of my tutors told me: One sentence can do one job only not 500 jobs! It’s an exaggeration I’ll never forget.
(v) Did the writer expose you to pages and pages of dialog? Dialogs are windows to the inner world of heroes and villains. Pages and pages of dialog however can be tedious.
We can learn lots from experiental writing but is it the only way of mastering writing skills? Hardly, but it’s a good start.
How about writing courses?
Let us assume that writing skills are likened to islands. One tutor of creative writing can take you to the Bahamas. Another to the Aegean or Canary islands . . etc. One course of creative writing is therefore hardly enough for a writer. Many courses would enrich you.
Books on How to write descriptive passages, How to plot etc are also great. The talented writers of these books would coach you how to lie for fun and profit. Lastly periodicals like The Writer contain a wealth of articles that would tickle your fancy and answer many questions you might have.
Is that all we need to do? No! Because we need to master many computer programs that help us increase the quality of our work. In particular I would like to mention the editing programs that are worth having in your computer. Here I’m assuming that you already have dictionaries and at least one thesaurus in your computer because the era when writers flicked the pages of a thesaurus or a dictionary is behind us.
Is that all? No, it is not but I’d better stop here in case I’d leave you with the impression that it is all too difficult and you give up.
Some writers believe that PR and PR alone, is enough to propel them to success, but I doubt it. Quality is and will always be what readers and editors seek but let me digress a little.
Many moons ago commercial enterprises learned that quality is:
(i) What beats the competition; and
(ii) The costs related to attaining quality are minimal.
That is how the Quality Movement started. The CEO of an enterprise sets the benchmarks for quality and all employees strive to reach these benchmarks. As soon as the enterprise reaches the benchmarks, the CEO raises the bar and this happens continually. The tacit assumption here is that PR alone is not enough to bust the competition but it helps.
Is there a limit beyond which an enterprise cannot improve the quality of its services / products? Of course there is for many enterprises but not for the Learning Enterprises. Because in a learning enterprise the employees gain new skills along the way. And armed with these extra skills they reach the benchmarks set by the CEO. Conversely enterprises that do not increase the skills of their employees can hit a glass wall or a plateau in their quest for quality improvements.
Quality in writing is easily recognized and appreciated. Editors / readers for instance recognize quality of a manuscript by reading the first two to three paragraphs. Borrowing from the quality movement only the learning writer is destined to succeed.
How do we improve the quality of our writing skills? That is a question of interest for all of us.
Experiental learning is great. You learn the writing skills by writing and by subjecting your work to critique sessions. You invite everyone to critique your work. You don’t have to accept everything they suggest but the bits you accept are manna from the gods. More importantly critique sessions keep you humble.
In more general terms experiental writing helps you find your voice. One of my friends claims that you find your voice only after you have written a million words. It might be an exaggeration but it is a view worth remembering.
Reading novels can be rewarding too if you ask the following questions:
(i) What did I learn from the first and last Chapters? After reading the first chapter did the writer convince me to suspend disbelief? Did the last chapter help me decide the book was a great read?
(ii) Did the writer achieve a balance between telling and showing? Here it is worth remembering that if the writer shows everything her book would have 1000 pages!
(iii) How about descriptions? Before the television era, descriptions were mandatory, long and detailed. After many years of television, descriptions are succinct. So succinct in fact that many writers weave descriptive passages into the plot. Was the book full of memorable descriptions but the plot tenuous?
(iv) Am I happy with the length of her sentences? Did she mix short and long sentences or did she use long and longer sentences? Or short and shorter sentences? Short sentences are ideal to describe action i.e. a fight, a love scene, or a chase but if you use short sentences only you would end up with pages and pages of telegraphic English. For narrative a mixture of long and short sentences is appealing and revise sentences longer than say 30 words. One of my tutors told me: One sentence can do one job only not 500 jobs! It’s an exaggeration I’ll never forget.
(v) Did the writer expose you to pages and pages of dialog? Dialogs are windows to the inner world of heroes and villains. Pages and pages of dialog however can be tedious.
We can learn lots from experiental writing but is it the only way of mastering writing skills? Hardly, but it’s a good start.
How about writing courses?
Let us assume that writing skills are likened to islands. One tutor of creative writing can take you to the Bahamas. Another to the Aegean or Canary islands . . etc. One course of creative writing is therefore hardly enough for a writer. Many courses would enrich you.
Books on How to write descriptive passages, How to plot etc are also great. The talented writers of these books would coach you how to lie for fun and profit. Lastly periodicals like The Writer contain a wealth of articles that would tickle your fancy and answer many questions you might have.
Is that all we need to do? No! Because we need to master many computer programs that help us increase the quality of our work. In particular I would like to mention the editing programs that are worth having in your computer. Here I’m assuming that you already have dictionaries and at least one thesaurus in your computer because the era when writers flicked the pages of a thesaurus or a dictionary is behind us.
Is that all? No, it is not but I’d better stop here in case I’d leave you with the impression that it is all too difficult and you give up.
The Discovery of Interstellar Thioformaldehyde, Acetaldehyde, Methylamine, Deuterated water vapor and the Trans Ethyl Alcohol
The Discovery of Interstellar Thioformaldehyde, Acetaldehyde, Methylamine, Deuterated water vapor and the Trans Ethyl Alcohol
Dr Nicholas Fourikis
Introduction
I was a member of a team that discovered interstellar thioformaldehyde [1], acetaldedyde [2] and methylamine [3] using the 64m Parkes Radiotelescope in the early seventies.
The advantages we had over other teams searching for interstellar molecules were:
(i) The Parkes Radiotelescope has a respectable collecting area.
(ii) From Parkes, a small country town about 360 km West of Sydney, Australia, the Galactic Centre, a prolific source of interstellar molecules, is visible for more than six hours; and
(iii) My association with Japanese spectroscopists through Dr Masaki Morimoto of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory. Masaki and I were members of a larger team that designed and realized the Culgoora Solar Radioheliograph in the late sixties [4].
Against these advantages, we had the following disadvantages:
(i) The microwave industry in Australia was at an embryonic state [5]; furthermore, the budgets we had for instrumentation at the Parkes Radiotelescope were proportional to our comparatively low population. Consequently, we could only explore narrow windows of the microwave spectrum.
(ii) The installation of receivers at the Parkes Radiotelescope, for each observing period was tedious and time consuming.
Our search strategy was based on two assumptions: (a) The rotational state populations for several molecules do not follow a thermal law; and (b) No one had a detailed knowledge of the excitation processes, related to undetected molecules.
Given our instrumentation constraints, we decided to search the K-doublet transitions of the molecules that were chemically related to the molecules already discovered, assuming cosmic abundance ratios for the elements; the transition frequencies of the K-doublets however had to be within the bandwidth of the receivers available at the Parkes Radiotelescope facility.
Morale among us was low before our successes but after our successes it was possible for me to get observing periods at the NRAO radiotelescopes at Green Bank and Kitt Peak and at the Mitaka, Japan.
The Discovery of Interstellar Thioformaldehyde.
The prospect of detecting the 2-2 transition of thioformaldehyde during our five day observing period was not good for the following reasons: (a) Two groups before us failed to detect the 1-1 transition of the molecule [6&7]; and (c) The phase-lock subsystem of the 9cm receiver we used was inoperative. Without phase-locking of the receiver’s local oscillator it was impossible to attain long integration times toward sources of interest.
As neither M. W. Sinclair who was the engineer in charge for the receiver, nor the local technical staff could restore the subsystem, I stepped in to investigate the problem. Tests I performed indicated that the fault was with the circuitry situated at the prime focus cabin of the 64m Parkes Radiotelescope. With the aid of a multimeter and a portable cathode ray oscilloscope I proceeded exploring the circuitry associated with the subsystem. Without any familiarity of the subsystem, it took me some time to locate the fault, a shorted resistor. After I replaced it, the subsystem worked and we were able to detect the 2-2 transition of thioformaldehyde during the remaining one and a half days of our allocated observing time.
After we returned to our Sydney base, we communicated the discovery to the participants of the NRAO Workshop on Interstellar Molecules in Charlottsville, Virginia.
The Detection of the 2-2 Transition of Interstellar Acetaldehyde.
We already knew of the discovery of interstellar acetaldehyde by its 1-1 transition [8] but decided to search for the 2-2 transition to increase our knowledge of the excitation process related to the molecule. Since our detection [2], several papers confirmed our hypothesis that the 2-2 transition required maser amplification.
The Discovery of Interstellar Methylamine.
Knowing that Japan had several world-class spectroscopists, I sent the frequency coverage of the Parkes Radiotelescope receivers to Dr Masaki Morimoto and asked him to consult with them. I was specifically interested in transitions of methylamine that fell within the bandwidth of our receivers. Methylamine is the terminal product of the hydrogenation series based on the cyanide radical, hydrogen cyanide and methanimine, interstellar species already discovered.
During a brief visit to Australia, Masaki and I decided to search for the 2-1 transition of methylamine after consultations he had with Dr Kojiro Takagi of Toyama University. In March 1974 I detected the transition we were interested in during an observing period I had at Parkes [9]. The detection was possible because the two states of the molecule, 202 and 110, are inverted.
When I communicated our discovery to Masaki, he informed me that members of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory detected two mm-wave transitions of methylamine using the Mitaka 6m radiotelescope and the 11m Kitt Peak radiotelescope. After many considerations, we decided that they publish their detections in one paper [10] and we publish our detection in another [9]. Naturally I insisted that K Takagi who was at the time at Rice University, Houston Texas be my co-author together with M Morimoto and the two papers appeared back to back in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In our paper [9] we sited paper [10] but the authors of the latter paper did not cite our paper although M Morimoto and K Takagi were co-authors of both papers.
The Detection of Interstellar Deuterated Water Vapor and Trans ethyl alcohol
Soon after the detection of interstellar methylamine, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science awarded me a Fellowship and an attachment to the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory for a year - 1975-6. I decided to take up the fellowship after a detour to the US, where I had an observing period with the 11m Kitt Peak mm-wave radiotelescope to search for interstellar HNO. To maximize the chances of detecting new interstellar molecules during my session, I decided to join forces with Ben Zuckerman and Barry Turner.
That observing session offered us a chance to explore the mm-wave spectrum using a new super sensitive receiver engineered by A Kerr, a fellow Australian working at NRAO.
During that observing session we did not detect interstellar HNO but detected interstellar deteurated water vapor [11] and a number of unknown emission lines. Other observing teams after us established that one of the emission lines we detected was due to the trans ethyl alcohol species and they detected two more lines of the molecule [12]. While I was in the US, I contributed to the writing of the two papers, before I headed to Tokyo to take up my fellowship.
Soon after I arrived in Japan, I took the train to Toyama, where Dr Kojiro Takagi met me at the station. From there he took me to the Physics Department of Toyama University and showed me the spectrum of the methylamine transition, I detected from Parkes displayed on a cathode ray oscilloscope. His students worked all morning to re-measure the spectrum of methylamine for my benefit. Seeing the spectrum of the transition of methylamine with its hyperfine components, I shook hands with Kojiro and the members of his team.
References
[1] Sinclair MW, Fourikis N, Ribes JC, Robinson BJ, Brown RD and Godfrey PD. Detection of interstellar thioformaldehyde. Aust J Phys , Vol 26, 1973.
[2] Fourikis N, Sinclair MW, Robinson BJ, Godfrey PD and Brown RD. Microwave emission of the 211-212 rotational transition in interstellar acetaldehyde. Aust J Phys , Vol 27. No 3, 1974.
[3] Fourikis N, Takagi K and Morimoto M. detection of interstellar methylamine by its 202-110 AA- state transition. Astrophys Lett 191. No3 Part 2, 1974.
[4] Special Edition on the Culgoora Radioheliograph, Proc IREE (Aust), Vol28. No9, Sep 1967.
[5] Fourikis N. Microwave engineering education in Australia. Invited paper IEEE Trans Micr Theory & Tech, Vol 41, No6, June 1993.
[6] Davies RD, Booth RS and Pedlar A. Mon Nt R Astr Soc 152, 7P, 1971.
[7] Evans NJ, Townes CH, Weaver HF and Williams DR. Science NY 169, 680, 1970.
[8] Gottlieb CA. In Molecules in the Galactic Environment. Edit by MA Gordon and LE Snyder. P182, Wiley Interscience, New York, 1973.
[9] Fourikis N, Takagi K and Morimoto M. Detection of interstellar methylamine by its 202-110 AA-state transition. Astrophys J Lett, L139-141, 191, 1974.
[10] Kaifu N, Morimoto M, Nagane K, Akabane K, Iguchi T, Takagi K. Detection of interstellar methylamine. Astrophys J Lett, L135-137, 191, 1974.
[11] Turner BE, Zuckerman B, Fourikis N, Morris M and Palmer P. Microwave detection of interstellar HDO. Astrophys J Lett, Vol198. No 3, 15 June 1975.
[12] Zuckerman B, Turner BE, Johnson DR, Clark FO, Lovas FJ, Fourikis N, Palmer P, Lilley AE, Ball JA, Gottlieb CA. Litvak MM and Penfield. Detection of interstellar trans ethyl alcohol. Astrophys J Lett, Vol196, No 3, March 15 1975.
Dr Nicholas Fourikis
Introduction
I was a member of a team that discovered interstellar thioformaldehyde [1], acetaldedyde [2] and methylamine [3] using the 64m Parkes Radiotelescope in the early seventies.
The advantages we had over other teams searching for interstellar molecules were:
(i) The Parkes Radiotelescope has a respectable collecting area.
(ii) From Parkes, a small country town about 360 km West of Sydney, Australia, the Galactic Centre, a prolific source of interstellar molecules, is visible for more than six hours; and
(iii) My association with Japanese spectroscopists through Dr Masaki Morimoto of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory. Masaki and I were members of a larger team that designed and realized the Culgoora Solar Radioheliograph in the late sixties [4].
Against these advantages, we had the following disadvantages:
(i) The microwave industry in Australia was at an embryonic state [5]; furthermore, the budgets we had for instrumentation at the Parkes Radiotelescope were proportional to our comparatively low population. Consequently, we could only explore narrow windows of the microwave spectrum.
(ii) The installation of receivers at the Parkes Radiotelescope, for each observing period was tedious and time consuming.
Our search strategy was based on two assumptions: (a) The rotational state populations for several molecules do not follow a thermal law; and (b) No one had a detailed knowledge of the excitation processes, related to undetected molecules.
Given our instrumentation constraints, we decided to search the K-doublet transitions of the molecules that were chemically related to the molecules already discovered, assuming cosmic abundance ratios for the elements; the transition frequencies of the K-doublets however had to be within the bandwidth of the receivers available at the Parkes Radiotelescope facility.
Morale among us was low before our successes but after our successes it was possible for me to get observing periods at the NRAO radiotelescopes at Green Bank and Kitt Peak and at the Mitaka, Japan.
The Discovery of Interstellar Thioformaldehyde.
The prospect of detecting the 2-2 transition of thioformaldehyde during our five day observing period was not good for the following reasons: (a) Two groups before us failed to detect the 1-1 transition of the molecule [6&7]; and (c) The phase-lock subsystem of the 9cm receiver we used was inoperative. Without phase-locking of the receiver’s local oscillator it was impossible to attain long integration times toward sources of interest.
As neither M. W. Sinclair who was the engineer in charge for the receiver, nor the local technical staff could restore the subsystem, I stepped in to investigate the problem. Tests I performed indicated that the fault was with the circuitry situated at the prime focus cabin of the 64m Parkes Radiotelescope. With the aid of a multimeter and a portable cathode ray oscilloscope I proceeded exploring the circuitry associated with the subsystem. Without any familiarity of the subsystem, it took me some time to locate the fault, a shorted resistor. After I replaced it, the subsystem worked and we were able to detect the 2-2 transition of thioformaldehyde during the remaining one and a half days of our allocated observing time.
After we returned to our Sydney base, we communicated the discovery to the participants of the NRAO Workshop on Interstellar Molecules in Charlottsville, Virginia.
The Detection of the 2-2 Transition of Interstellar Acetaldehyde.
We already knew of the discovery of interstellar acetaldehyde by its 1-1 transition [8] but decided to search for the 2-2 transition to increase our knowledge of the excitation process related to the molecule. Since our detection [2], several papers confirmed our hypothesis that the 2-2 transition required maser amplification.
The Discovery of Interstellar Methylamine.
Knowing that Japan had several world-class spectroscopists, I sent the frequency coverage of the Parkes Radiotelescope receivers to Dr Masaki Morimoto and asked him to consult with them. I was specifically interested in transitions of methylamine that fell within the bandwidth of our receivers. Methylamine is the terminal product of the hydrogenation series based on the cyanide radical, hydrogen cyanide and methanimine, interstellar species already discovered.
During a brief visit to Australia, Masaki and I decided to search for the 2-1 transition of methylamine after consultations he had with Dr Kojiro Takagi of Toyama University. In March 1974 I detected the transition we were interested in during an observing period I had at Parkes [9]. The detection was possible because the two states of the molecule, 202 and 110, are inverted.
When I communicated our discovery to Masaki, he informed me that members of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory detected two mm-wave transitions of methylamine using the Mitaka 6m radiotelescope and the 11m Kitt Peak radiotelescope. After many considerations, we decided that they publish their detections in one paper [10] and we publish our detection in another [9]. Naturally I insisted that K Takagi who was at the time at Rice University, Houston Texas be my co-author together with M Morimoto and the two papers appeared back to back in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In our paper [9] we sited paper [10] but the authors of the latter paper did not cite our paper although M Morimoto and K Takagi were co-authors of both papers.
The Detection of Interstellar Deuterated Water Vapor and Trans ethyl alcohol
Soon after the detection of interstellar methylamine, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science awarded me a Fellowship and an attachment to the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory for a year - 1975-6. I decided to take up the fellowship after a detour to the US, where I had an observing period with the 11m Kitt Peak mm-wave radiotelescope to search for interstellar HNO. To maximize the chances of detecting new interstellar molecules during my session, I decided to join forces with Ben Zuckerman and Barry Turner.
That observing session offered us a chance to explore the mm-wave spectrum using a new super sensitive receiver engineered by A Kerr, a fellow Australian working at NRAO.
During that observing session we did not detect interstellar HNO but detected interstellar deteurated water vapor [11] and a number of unknown emission lines. Other observing teams after us established that one of the emission lines we detected was due to the trans ethyl alcohol species and they detected two more lines of the molecule [12]. While I was in the US, I contributed to the writing of the two papers, before I headed to Tokyo to take up my fellowship.
Soon after I arrived in Japan, I took the train to Toyama, where Dr Kojiro Takagi met me at the station. From there he took me to the Physics Department of Toyama University and showed me the spectrum of the methylamine transition, I detected from Parkes displayed on a cathode ray oscilloscope. His students worked all morning to re-measure the spectrum of methylamine for my benefit. Seeing the spectrum of the transition of methylamine with its hyperfine components, I shook hands with Kojiro and the members of his team.
References
[1] Sinclair MW, Fourikis N, Ribes JC, Robinson BJ, Brown RD and Godfrey PD. Detection of interstellar thioformaldehyde. Aust J Phys , Vol 26, 1973.
[2] Fourikis N, Sinclair MW, Robinson BJ, Godfrey PD and Brown RD. Microwave emission of the 211-212 rotational transition in interstellar acetaldehyde. Aust J Phys , Vol 27. No 3, 1974.
[3] Fourikis N, Takagi K and Morimoto M. detection of interstellar methylamine by its 202-110 AA- state transition. Astrophys Lett 191. No3 Part 2, 1974.
[4] Special Edition on the Culgoora Radioheliograph, Proc IREE (Aust), Vol28. No9, Sep 1967.
[5] Fourikis N. Microwave engineering education in Australia. Invited paper IEEE Trans Micr Theory & Tech, Vol 41, No6, June 1993.
[6] Davies RD, Booth RS and Pedlar A. Mon Nt R Astr Soc 152, 7P, 1971.
[7] Evans NJ, Townes CH, Weaver HF and Williams DR. Science NY 169, 680, 1970.
[8] Gottlieb CA. In Molecules in the Galactic Environment. Edit by MA Gordon and LE Snyder. P182, Wiley Interscience, New York, 1973.
[9] Fourikis N, Takagi K and Morimoto M. Detection of interstellar methylamine by its 202-110 AA-state transition. Astrophys J Lett, L139-141, 191, 1974.
[10] Kaifu N, Morimoto M, Nagane K, Akabane K, Iguchi T, Takagi K. Detection of interstellar methylamine. Astrophys J Lett, L135-137, 191, 1974.
[11] Turner BE, Zuckerman B, Fourikis N, Morris M and Palmer P. Microwave detection of interstellar HDO. Astrophys J Lett, Vol198. No 3, 15 June 1975.
[12] Zuckerman B, Turner BE, Johnson DR, Clark FO, Lovas FJ, Fourikis N, Palmer P, Lilley AE, Ball JA, Gottlieb CA. Litvak MM and Penfield. Detection of interstellar trans ethyl alcohol. Astrophys J Lett, Vol196, No 3, March 15 1975.
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