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Speaker 1: The Stay in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Eves and Welcome to This Day

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Speaker 1: in History Class, a show that on covers a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about history every day. Today is May twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: The day was made nineteen twelve. Ruby Violet Payne Scott

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Speaker 1: was born in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, to Amy

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Speaker 1: and Cyril Herman Payne Scott. Ruby would go on to

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Speaker 1: become Australia's first female radio astronomer. In the early nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: Ruby's family moved to Sydney. She attended Sydney Girls High School,

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Speaker 1: where she graduated at age sixteen. After getting scholarships to

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Speaker 1: attend the University of Sydney, she enrolled there and be

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Speaker 1: and studying physics, chemistry, math and botany. In nineteen thirty three,

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Speaker 1: Ruby got her Bachelor of Science degree from the university

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Speaker 1: with first class honors in physics and math. Three years

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Speaker 1: later she received a Master of Science degree in physics,

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Speaker 1: and a couple of years after that she got a

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Speaker 1: Diploma of Education. Australia was hit hard by the Great

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Speaker 1: Depression in the nineteen thirties, but Ruby still managed to

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Speaker 1: find work as a physicist with the Cancer Research Committee

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Speaker 1: at the University of Sydney, where she worked from nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty six to nineteen thirty eight. There she researched radiation,

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Speaker 1: which had been identified as a treatment for cancer near

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century, but when the research

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Speaker 1: projects shut down and she was unable to find work,

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Speaker 1: she began teaching at Woodland's Church of England Girls Grammar

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Speaker 1: School in Adelaide, but in nineteen thirty nine she returned

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Speaker 1: to physics research. She began working as a librarian Amalgamated

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Speaker 1: Wireless Australasia and Sydney and electronics manufacturer in two way

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Speaker 1: radio communications systems operator, becoming the only woman on the

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Speaker 1: company's professional staff. But at this time World War two

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Speaker 1: was gearing up. In NT one, she was appointed Research

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Speaker 1: Scientists in the Division of Radio Physics of the Council

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Speaker 1: for Scientific and Industrial Research or c s i R

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Speaker 1: to do research on radar, a new defensive weapon. She

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Speaker 1: also worked in solar astronomy and did research on radar

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Speaker 1: calibration and the use of interferometry to locate hostile plane positions.

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Speaker 1: She became an expert at recognizing Japanese aircraft from other

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Speaker 1: sources of radio static. Through her work on small signal

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Speaker 1: visibility of radar displays and the measurement of receiver noise factors,

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Speaker 1: Ruby linked up with Australian scientists Joseph L. Posey. They

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Speaker 1: carried out what could be considered the Radio Astronomy Experiment

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Speaker 1: in the Southern Hemisphere in nineteen four to break down

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Speaker 1: these fields of study. Radio astronomy is the study of

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Speaker 1: celestial objects that give off radio waves. Radio physics is

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Speaker 1: a branch of physics concerned with the properties and application

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Speaker 1: of radiation. Ruby focused on solar noise and its correlation

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Speaker 1: with sun spot activity. Her work was integral in the

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Speaker 1: discovery of type one, two, and three solar bursts. Other

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Speaker 1: notable work includes her research with Posy and Lindsay Macready,

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Speaker 1: where they introduced the use of Fourier synthesis into radio astronomy.

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Speaker 1: Ruby also helped create a device called the swept lobe interferometer,

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Speaker 1: which allowed radio astronomers to identify and observe single way formations.

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Speaker 1: Despite pain Scott's pioneering work, radio astronomy in Australia at

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Speaker 1: the time was subject to isolation and Australian journals were

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Speaker 1: not widely read. In ninety nine, c s i R

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Speaker 1: became the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization or c

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Speaker 1: s i r O. Ruby soon ran into some conflict

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Speaker 1: that would lead to her resignation. She secretly married William Hall,

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Speaker 1: a telephone mechanic, in ninety four. The two were feminist,

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Speaker 1: environmental conservationists, atheist, and left leaning. In fact, her colleagues

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Speaker 1: called her Red Ruby because of her supposed communist sympathies,

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Speaker 1: but public service rules required women to resign when they

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Speaker 1: got married. When c s i r OH management found

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Speaker 1: out about the marriage in nineteen fifty, she was pulled

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Speaker 1: from her permanent position and became a temporary employee. She

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Speaker 1: left the organization in radio astronomy the next year, when

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Speaker 1: she was pregnant. She wrote the following to the CEO

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Speaker 1: of c s I R O. I am of course

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Speaker 1: sorry to give up the research work I have been doing,

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Speaker 1: and also to leave the laboratory where I have been

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Speaker 1: so happy and have so many friends. If all goes well,

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Speaker 1: I do not expect to be returning to radio physics

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Speaker 1: at least four some years. When she left, she had

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Speaker 1: one of the highest salaries of the scientific staff who

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Speaker 1: were on the administration. By nineteen fifty three, she had

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Speaker 1: her second child, and she stayed home to raise the

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Speaker 1: two of them. From nineteen sixty three to nineteen seventy four,

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Speaker 1: Payne Scott taught math and science at Dane Bank Church

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Speaker 1: of England School for Girls. She died of pre senile

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Speaker 1: dementia in nineteen eighty one. Her son became a statistician

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Speaker 1: and her daughter and artist. I'm Eve Jeff Coote and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. And here is an additional note about

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Speaker 1: Ruby Payne Scott. She has been called the first female

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Speaker 1: radio astronomer anywhere, though some people would argue that that

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Speaker 1: title belongs to Elizabeth Alec Standard. Get more Notes from

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Speaker 1: History on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t d I

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Speaker 1: h C podcast. Thanks again for listening, and I hope

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Speaker 1: you come back tomorrow for more delicious morsels of history.

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.