Hacker News Reader

Comment by xevb3k | Hacker News Reader

And here I was thinking I’d try to get in first with a Three Body Problem reference, but you beat me to it.

It’s interesting though, China does appear to have a much stronger commitment to radio astronomy than the US (at least that’s how the article characterizes it).

I wonder why that is? The article didn’t really discuss why radio astronomy is so attractive...

View on HN

There was a talk by Steve Blank where he was explaining US investment into radio astronomy(arecibo for example) by military projects aiming to establish the signatures and order of battle of soviet radars. They would measure the reflection of radar signals from the moon.

Can you share a link, if possible? The only one I found was an hour long talk hosted on youtube [1].

Thank you!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

0:51 in that talk. Though it doesnt mention arecibo specifically(i might have mis-remebered it) its still a fun thought.

They have invested in building a huge dish, that's true, but they also want to build a pretty big optical telescope (though that project is somewhat stalled due to political infighting in the community [1]) and there is talk of a big collider experiment as well.

I think there is in general just a push in China to get world leading science experiments, and the simplest way to reach that is to build the biggest of something.

In contrast, if they primarily wanted to do radio astronomy science they would probably be working on getting to be part of the Event Horizon Telescope, China could really fill a gap in their coverage.

Some more data points: the US is member of ALMA but left SKA. China is a member of SKA, but not ALMA. I guess not being part of SKA is a pretty telling omission by the US, and it was mostly money related as I understand it.

In reality I think this is more a case of the US government having a waning interest in radio astronomy, possibly as a result of the optical astronomers stealing all the money to the three huge telescopes they plan to build: LSST, GMT and TMT.

[1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/spat-threatens-china-...

Why? How about the direct military applications? Resolving the signal from a distant black hole, the true light against a haze of static, is exactly how you detect the low-level radar reflection of a stealthy aircraft, or the sound of a submarine against the background of pistol shrimp. Teasing out information from a tiny radio signal, even using radio to image objects, that definitely has a military use.

Yes, but none of those problems requiring building a really really big radio telescope.

Sure there are some common data analysis techniques, but they are common to a lot of applications.

Maybe having the largest telescope will attract more top talent to the field :)

Alternative theory: Perhaps not everyone in the world is obsessed with military might and it is simply just a commitment to scientific advancement?

Their plan to put a radio telescope on the far side of the moon would be a huge win for science.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com