Overview
- Describes how The Netherlands moved to the forefront of the development of radio astronomy
- Expands literature on the subject to include political and strategic aspects in addition to the underlying science
- Stresses the global and national competitiveness of the radio astronomy field in its early days
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Historical & Cultural Astronomy (HCA)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
To tell this story, the book focuses on three key events in the period 1940-1970, namely the construction of the radio telescopes in Kootwijk (1948), in Dwingeloo (1956), and in Westerbork (1970). These projects show that Dutch radio astronomers must not be seen as merely scientists, but also as strategic lobbyists, networkers and organizers in a specific political and economic context. It was in the process of planning, designing and constructing these instruments that the interests of the astronomers, industrial partners, politicians and lobby groups merged to create today's existing research centers for radio astronomy.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Having completed her studies, Astrid was offered a job as a researcher at Leiden University and started work on her PhD on the history of Dutch radio astronomy. She presented the findings of her PhD research at several conferences in the Netherlands as well as abroad, inPhoenix, San Diego, Indiana, Aberdeen, Exeter, Brussels and Aarhus. She was a member of the Huizinga Institute, the national Dutch research network for cultural history, and devised and taught a seminar Science and the Public for graduate students together with some colleagues. Her work resulted in two scholarly articles as well as several contributions in conference proceedings and popular scientific magazines, book reviews and journalistic articles.
In addition to her research in Leiden she worked as a volunteer researcher at the Museum for the History of Science of Ghent University and became the author of two publications accompanying the exhibitions. Astrid obtained an additional degree in applied linguistics (journalism) from the Erasmus University College Brussels. She is currently teaching Dutch as a second language at the Institute for Language and Communication (Linguapolis) of the University of Antwerp.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Rise of Radio Astronomy in the Netherlands
Book Subtitle: The People and the Politics
Authors: Astrid Elbers
Series Title: Historical & Cultural Astronomy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49079-3
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-49078-6Published: 02 December 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84081-9Published: 05 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-49079-3Published: 23 November 2016
Series ISSN: 2509-310X
Series E-ISSN: 2509-3118
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 240
Number of Illustrations: 32 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
Topics: Astronomy, Observations and Techniques, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, History of Science