Year: 
1950

This man, with the Mephistophelian/Orson Wellsian visage, is Ralph E. Williamson, Ph.D. Chicago, a student of Chandrasekhar. Ralph came to UofT/DDO in 1946 or so. He and I had been great friends together at Cornell. At the start of WWII, we found ourselves teaching navigation to US Navy Midshipmen recruits. Then I went to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Ralph stayed on for a bit, working with Charles Seeger onthe Cornell radio astronomy project (now Aricebo) that Charles initiated. Ralph left DDO abruptly to go to Los Alamos, in 1952 or 1953, leaving behind his wife Dorothy Williamson. I think Dorothy W. worked for a while at the Ross Street RASC office after that. Ralph died several years ago. Ralph and Ruth Northcott wrote I think two articles analysing Reber's early observations of Milky Way radio astronomy and published them in the Journal in the early 50's. [JRASC 42,269]

Photo by R. Northcott, Nov. 1950. Note by D.A. MacRae, 1998.

R.E. Williamson