This open access book is a biography of Joseph L. Pawsey. It examines not only his life but the
birth and growth of the field of radio astronomy and the state of science itself in twentieth
century Australia. The book explains how an isolated continent with limited resources grew to
be one of the leaders in the study of radio astronomy and the design of instruments to do so.
Pawsey made a name for himself in the international astronomy community within a decade after
WWII and coined the term radio astronomy. His most valuable talent was his ability to recruit
and support bright young scientists who became the technical and methodological innovators of
the era building new telescopes from the Mills Cross and Chris (Christiansen) Cross to the
Parkes radio telescope. The development of aperture synthesis and the controversy surrounding
the cosmological interpretation of the first major survey which resulted in the Sydney research
group's disagreements with Nobel laureate Martin Ryle play major roles in this story. This book
also shows the connections among prominent astronomers like Oort Minkowski Baade Struve
famous scientists in the UK such as J.A. Ratcliffe Edward Appleton and Henry Tizard and the
engineers and physicists in Australia who helped develop the field of radio astronomy. Pawsey
was appointed the second Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Green Bank West
Virginia) in October 1961 he died in Sydney at the age of 54 in late November 1962. Upper
level students scientists and historians of astronomy and technology will find the information
much of it from primary sources relevant to any study of Joseph L. Pawsey or radio astronomy.
This open access book includes a Foreword by Woodruff T. Sullivan II.
