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Another test whether a new post will trigger an email notification.

Memories of Murray from Jim Reid and Alan Watson

Jim McCaughan has passed on expressions of condolence for Murray from their mutual friends and colleagues at Leeds - Bob Reid and Alan Watson FRS.

Dear Jim,

Very sorry to hear that Murray has died. He was a good friend both at the time he spent in Leeds when he made a significant contribution to Haverah Park and to our thinking. And later after the Adelaide conference when I stayed with him and Evelyn. I still have a eucalyptus tree that they planted in our garden.

Hope all is well with you and Genevieve. With all good wishes,

Bob.

                                                    ******************

Dear Jim,

Thanks for letting me know this very sad news.  I was very fond of Murrayand got to know him very well during his one-year visit to Leedsmany years ago.  I recall vividly him cooking a meal for me and doing frozen Brussel sprouts without water – I think with some butter, probably a French novelty.  He was a brilliant experimentalist and we used a device that he designed for us, MAGIC (Murray’s automatic gain indicating circuit), that really revolutionised our data taking at Haverah Park.  It was extended and used for many years.

I was last in contact with Murray in 2011 when I spoke at some length with him by SKYPE about the way in which the idea for the Sydney air-shower array was developed by him.  He was very animated about it.  The original way of having a timing signal across the array (now duplicated at the Auger and Telescope Array projects) was certainly his idea and in our history of EAS published in 2012 Karl-Heinz Kampert and I make this very clear.  A very brief note of my conversation with Murray is attached. 

                                            ****************************

Conversation with Murray Winn 25-11-11

Murray rang in response to my e-mail of 08-11-11.  His e-mail is dodgy.  I called him back on SKYPE and we talked at length.

He did have the idea of autonomous detectors as I’d surmised.  McCusker had told him that he had always had the dream of building a really giant air-shower array.  Murray had the idea about a week later while on a walk to a look-out near the sea.  It all came to him in a flash – only time something like that ever happened to him.  McCusker liked the idea and said that he could get money from the Americans: he did.

It was Henri Rathgeber.  He read out title of a paper of Rathgeber’s in French.  Had a vague memory of Rathgeber mentioning that he had married the boss’s daughter.  Rathgeber was very interested in economics.  (This refers to another matter I was following up at the time: the history of Erich Regener, a German who discovered the maximum of the rate of production of ionisation in the atmosphere in the 1930s.  Regener lost his job as his wife was Jewish.  Per Carlson and I researched this a bit and there is a paper attached).

                                           ******************************

We also discussed Henri Rathgeber who was the son-in-law of an important German physicist, Erich Regener (see paper attached).

Click here to see Regener paper.

Please give my sympathies to the children who were quite young when they were in Leeds.

Best regards,

Alan

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Lawrie Peak's eulogy

Vale Murray Winn 1927 - 2015

We said farewell to Murray at a moving funeral service this afternoon.

I will put the contents of the memorial booklet in the 'This is Your Life'  section. I will also post some personal reminiscences in due course, as I am sure others will as well.


Click here for Lawrie Peak's eulogy to Murray.

Potted autobio - Tony Parkinson

Brief Scientific Autobiography - Tony Parkinson

I have summarised this and you can find it in the "This is Your Life" section.

-- TonyP

SUGAR - Tony Parkinson's contributions

SUGAR - Tony Parkinson's contributions

These are described under the SUGAR tab.


--TonyP

Cloud Chambers - Tony Parkinson's contributions

Cloud Chambers - Tony Parkinson's contributions

I have included a description of the various projects in the 'Cloud Chambers' tab. There I conclude
with the following observations....
-----------
I was browsing in a big city bookshop when I was shocked to notice a slim volume entitled "The Quest For Quarks" by one Brian McCusker, and published by Cambridge University Press as a science book. If anyone has seen it, they will conclude it is a travesty. For the present conversation, I will just point out that it ignores all the work after 1969 on the ionization saturation effects of the flawed experiment, and repeats the misunderstandings concerning the object counts on the photographs.

--TonyP

CBA (Brian) McCusker

 

What can I say about Brian McCusker?  I first met and heard him in our fourth year honours course when he gave a course on cosmic rays. He was really a very good lecturer with a wealth of history behind him - having worked at the University of Liverpool (working with Chadwick) and then the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, interacting with such immortals as Janossy and Schrodinger and even supervising Harry Messel on air shower simulation studies.

In those early days he was a scientist with international recognition, and his supervision of the installation, operation and running of the M-Unit array, the 64 scintillator array (unshielded, shielded and sandwich) associated cloud chambers as well as the Pilliga arrays brought keen interest at all the international cosmic ray conferences.

It must be said that all those early research efforts were well founded. Examining the cores of air showers with good resolution, establishing the occurrence of high transverse momentum interactions in air shower cores and extending the energy spectrum via SUGAR (including examination of the knee and ankle)  gave rise to much interest and some friendly controversy (with Trumper at the University of Kiel for example).

Another idea that was certainly a good idea at the time was to search for quarks using cloud chambers in the cores of air showers. No-one had ever done this before; and it made a lot of sense as no-one knew about quark confinement in those days; and for all we knew there could have been quarks everywhere as a result of the high energy disruptive collisions occurring in air shower cores.

When the first paper was published showing four likely candidates; this was good science. It presented some interesting data with possibly spectacular conclusions – and said effectively “watch this space”. This was followed by a sensational paper (with Ian Cairns) showing  a very impressive cloud chamber picture of nine parallel core tracks – one of which was apparently  of lower ionisation and surrounded by normal neighbours. Again good science.

Unfortunately, Brian was seen to become increasingly arrogant in his presentation of these results and got a lot of people off-side accordingly. As more and more other experiments failed to produce any evidence of quarks, it was felt that the Sydney result was an unfortunate  non-uniformity in the cloud density and the statistics were not as telling as originally thought because of the way the droplets are formed in the first place.

Brian regrettably saw his Nobel prize vanishing – and he was well and truly over the peak of his scientific career. What followed were excursions into Eastern religions (involving a claim about levitation – which made him somewhat of a laughing stock) and an interest in near-death experiences (because of the work of his second wife Cherie Sutherland).

He was soon to disappear down to Victoria and no longer kept in contact with the school. I never had the chance to say good-bye to him.

My personal interaction with him was always positive. He supported my research at all times and steered me to an early PhD. In fact he oversaw many cosmic ray theses as we all know; and I am sure we can remember the drafts coming back to us full of red pencil!

In the early heady days of First Year TV teaching, Brian and I put together a series on “Heat and Thermodynamics”. Our producer, Jock Millett It turn – was a very lively Scotsman with scant regard for copyright. Things soon became far more restrictive. It turned  out that putting an entire lecture theatre in front of a box  for an hour was not the best idea. Nevertheless, our lectures were well received as the “Brian and Lawrie” show. In that exercise I could see what a good teacher Brian really was.

We played many a squash game together and he was extremely competitive. He would stay in the centre of the court often blocking the view and way for his opponent, much to their exasperation. He was always a very keen member of the Physics team when we played against Chemistry.

More than anything else, my memories of Brian are a mixture of respect and sadness. For someone with so much to give, I think with much sadness of his later years.

Lawrie Peak

June 2015.

Tony Bray reveals all

TonyB has provided a brief summary of his life as a physicist - including his time at DSTO.  He could tell you more - but then he would have to kill you.

Read all about it in the "This is Your Life" section.

The Summer of '62

The Summer of '62

Those who have seen the movie "The Summer of '42 (1971)" starring beautiful Jennifer O'Neill may be disappointed if they are expecting a romantic drama, but maybe ... a hint.

The summer of 1962-3 actually refers to the break between Physics III and IV, when I was a vacation student at the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) at Salisbury, north of Adelaide. Science and Engineering students came from all over Australia, and apart from me, there were two others from SydUni Physics. One was Mark Diesendorf who went on to do his PhD in Applied Maths at UNSW, and some may recall him. Mark took holy orders in the Green religion and was eventually sacked from CSIRO, but that's another story. The other was Dave Wiley who did his PhD on the Mills Cross, so most will recall him. Dave was already on a Defence Dept scholarship and spent his whole career in Defence and toured the world. I saw him at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Pyrmont, where Tony Bray also worked, in the 1990s. Dave reached a very high administrative position in Defence Science for Naval construction, based in Melbourne. BTW Defence Science has undergone many name changes over the years, so WRE is now DSTO, and the Salisbury site is the largest, but it is now contracting around the Edinburgh Air Force Base and the excess land is being sold off for development.

During summer 1962, while the local students were away, the vacation students were housed at Lincoln College, North Adelaide, abutting the huge parklands north of the Torrens River, where it is a nice walk to the footbridge over the river to the University of Adelaide and the centre of the city. During that summer there were open air classical music concerts, and in pre-open tennis days the professionals played at the famous Memorial Drive grass courts. As a fan I saw my idols Laver, Hoad and Rosewall, and Sedgman. Lew Hoad beat Rod Laver in a 5-set thriller. Near Lincoln College was the Women's and Children's Hospital full of student nurses! A magnet. In those days nurses did their training on the job and they were all female. Lincoln College was then Methodist with no alcohol and no visitors, but non-Methodists will find ways of doing things. Dave, Mark and I and others had to meekly apologise to the College after one alcohol party! We met Don Bradman's daughters and many others. The social life was good with cheap wine from the wineries plus from the local brewery Cooper's Ale with the residue in the bottle. I don't think they still make it that way as they went all Swan-VB-style. The beer was necessary as Adelaide's water from the tap was then a strange brown colour with that river smell!

Now to justify this conversation it's time to get technical. At WRE I built and tested the temperature sensor telemetry unit for the Jindivik drone jet which was sold all over the world. This might amuse electronics techos. They were so British at that time that when I went to the store to get some little 1/4W resistors, they gave me some HUGE wire-wound Welwyn power resistors! I forget how I got some proper resistors for the small aluminium box. Those were the days of the Brit Blue Streak rocket - the students had the full plans - I forget how security handled that! No doubt full of huge British resistors. How the Brits built the successful Harrier VTOL jump jets I'll never know. The Yanks bought them. Reminds me of the top Russian fighter jets with vacuum tube electronics.

--TonyP

PS This amusing video gives the flavour of Adelaide in the sixties:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RkNeNF2-Esw


Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1966. There's a pretty girl in it so blokes won't fall asleep.

Lawrie Peak's Random Recollections

Random Recollections from Lawrie Peak  (More to come)

 
These are just a few memories that come to mind (having been prompted lovingly by Leo!) I must say firstly that Jim McCaughan has done a very good job in his book “The Messel  Era” of capturing much of the early history of the School of Physics. This includes the early days of the Falkiner Nuclear Department as it was called before “Nuclear” became a dirty word.

 

John Malos

 If anyone ever met John they would never forget him! Huge, rugged pitted face with wild hair and bushy eyebrows. One would be excused to think he sounded like a Greek until he opened his mouth. He actually sounded very much “true blue”  coming from Tully with a far northern Queensland accent! He could however also speak Greek fluently which was no surprise I suppose.

 

He was an electronic wiz who had an intrinsic feel for the subject. Reportedly, he designed and built the first fast CRO (oscilloscope) with nanosecond timing – as it was needed for his research work. He swore by his “Bible” – the Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill ; still a great book. but necessarily dated (I don’t know about recent updates).

 

One day he was boasting that it was nothing to tear a telephone book in half!! I was sceptical until he took me down into the basement, grabbed the white pages next to the phone there and proceeded to tear it down the middle with his bare hands. I remained gob-smacked and the phone remained without any white pages for quite some time!

 

Although he looked so coarse and rugged, he delighted in fine cuisine and was quite the wine and whiskey connoisseur. He moved back to Bristol in his later years, and towards the end was in the process of buying his own Greek island ! The last time  I interacted with him he was in the process of designing a solar and wind power system for his island which had no electricity at all.  In fact it didn’t seem to have much of anything but it was to be his island.

 Phyllis Nicol

 Here was another character from the past !! I first met her in the second year laboratory. Not exactly the most attractive and she would spit in all directions as she talked to you. Her pet peeve was to wire up the necessary circuit for the experiment without writing down the principles of the experiment. If there were no principles, she would rip the circuitry apart rather violently and you would have to start again – after the principles had been finished satisfactorily of course.

 
She always gave me a warm welcome in her office whenever I came to her for a question or two – except that you could hardly see her for the smoke as she smoked like a chimney. She was co-author of Physics – Fundamental Laws and Principles - by Booth and Nicol which was quite a good but rather short text. I understand that the first editions had to be revised as they tried to explain surface tension purely in terms of gravity.

 
Hugh Murdoch

 Hugh died just recently and many may have met him also in the second year laboratory. Although he moved to radioastronomy when Bernie Mills came on the scene, he started in Cosmic Rays. He was a student of Henry Rathgeber working on the magnetic spectrograph to measure the muon momentum spectrum using the South Head tunnel. Dave (Crawford) and Derek (Nelson) can fill in more details of this I am sure.

 
Recreation

 
We were big on table tennis for a while. We played in the central room right up on the roof and down in the basement before it became all built up. Leo and I once invited Stuart Butler to join us thinking that we would be able to show him a thing or two. Much older, a little portly – so we decided to go easy on him. Well after much grunting and perspiration flying in all directions, I think we were able to get a point or two. How our balloon was burst! He was REALLY good! He was also really good at bridge so we never invited him back into our midst.

 
We also got together for bridge. In the West Tower we would play most lunch hours. Juris, Tony (Bray) John (Sutton) and myself. I can’t remember whether Tony (Gray) joined us for some occasions but he certainly did later on.

 
We moved to Juris’ Office in the New Wing (Room 368) and continued with Leo. Leo was just a little better than we were and I remember him asking politely one day whether we would mind if he didn’t play with us any longer. Apparently he was picking up our bad ways and we were polluting him!

 So we parted company in a very amicable way. He continued on to be a Grand Master (though missing out on our brilliant repartee) and we continued to delude ourselves that we were no too bad after all!

 

I currently have a desk in the very same room (368) so I have turned full circle – except that I have lost even more ability in bridge.

 Although not part of the team, I have vivid recollections of extensive post mortems each Monday after the catamaran adventures over the week-end in Botany Bay. I am sure members can fill us in more here (Don Melley, Mick Ryan, Geoff Chapman ???)

 
I remember being invited to play tennis with Bob May, Rod Cross and a visitor who liked to play. I was to make up the fourth. In a hurry to get there I left home grabbing a junior racquet and two left shoes ( I had two pairs). After the match, the racquet was broken and my knee had succumbed. It took a while for me to walk properly again.

 
Assorted (in no particular order).

·         Murray climbing the 150 foot tower at the Narrabri base station to service the transmitter. No-one else was bold enough!

·         Laurie and Eileen Horton arriving (by Land Rover) from England  (With Harold the dog in tow)!

·         Laurie’s  grand vision of a fireplace that seemed to be in the construction phase forever at Yarramalong  (it may still be!)

·         Great hilarity from the 346 club as various beers were sampled (and sampled and sampled)

·         Fred Yuan’s seminar with Bob May in the front seat. Fred was totally annihilated by Bob’s criticisms and comments. Bob May went on to elevated positions in the UK (close to God) – Fred successfully completed his MSc thesis.

·         Morning teas out on Physics Road at 11 AM.  Ron holding forth generally loudly and maybe throwing his thongs about from time to time.

·         Murray racing around banging on all door shouting “everyone out, everyone out – we have a triple!!” The first triple coincidence from the pilot SUGAR array around the campus.

Golf

Golf

I am definitely *not* a golfer. I only mention it as I live next to a golf course and I have to say something when locals talk about ... wait for it ... golf. That's the nature of old blokes, despite my tenuous connection to golf, which fortunately for this conversation has a connection to SydUni Physics (late 60s - early 70s). I'm certain I have no photos.

The background as I recall comes first. Many will remember the workshop chaps organized a series of weekend golfing days and invited the other actual "workers" (TOs & POs & students etc). I had never played before like many others, but some golf clubs from a jumble sale were pressed into service. I got around the courses with the only 3 clubs I could hit. I had a 2 wood from the tee and a putter for the greens, and a trusty 4 iron for everything else. My scores were far too high for a handicap. How could I compete with "professionals" like Michael Ryan who arrived with an impressive bag full of matched clubs? Anyway those works outings were a lot of fun. Many will recall the golf ball in a cup trophy that the workshop whipped up.

That was not quite the end of my golf. A North(?) Irish Physics PO (?) chap xxx Green (?) - I cannot recall his name or his leaning to Orange or Green, but I remember we discussed it - Derek and Don will surely know - invited me to join him on very early morning rounds of golf on workdays. The fresh air and conversation were fine. He must have been patient to put up with such a bad golfer. Did he invite others in Physics and they weren't silly enough to get up so early in the morning? Or did he just enjoy beating me? I jest. He enjoyed the company.

When I was transferred by Defence to Adelaide, I had to buy a house within 21 days as I wasn't officially married. Damned Public Service rules - married couples get 6 months rental subsidy! Anyway it turned out my next door neighbours were real fair dinkum golfing *fanatics*. Conversations turned on ... wait for it ... golf. Hence my recounting the Physics Dept tenuous golf connection above. My neighbour coached two of his daughters to national championships and they still win all the local women's golf tournaments. Their opponents are said to be a little frustrated!

It's time I scratched playing golf properly from my bucket list.

--TonyP

The Syndicate

The Syndicate (a trust not a cartel!)

The then youthful syndicate of four physicists was formed under the urging of the lead sailor Michael Ryan. Its junior members were Don Melley, Andy Bakich and Tony Parkinson. The syndicate purchased an old wooden QuickCat catamaran and a trailer in beautiful Gosford. It only had a mainsail, but we managed to jury rig a very poor piece of canvas for a jib. Considering the later adventure on Sydney Harbour it is fortunate we didn't try for a spinnaker!

I'm depending on memory of the late 1960s - early 1970s here and I'm sure the other members will do the fills and corrections, but I'm not too confident as Michael sent a recent email which indicated he recalled less than me! I'm sure I have some photos on 35mm slides of our adventures and *the* disaster, but patience, as after the last two moves some of my archives are still stored in cardboard boxes. Here goes.

I think our first sail on SydHarb was when Michael took us out on a big yacht (30 footer??) owned by St John's College. That was fun. I know we jibed the mainsail and we had to duck under the boom. We had a jib up, but did we hoist the spinnaker???  Michael tried to explain how to use the bits of string blowing in the wind - vector mechanics - I never really figured it out (blame Murray's lectures). I seem to recall the College gave Michael a slap over the wrist??? I think it was after that that we formed the syndicate and proceeded as above. Maybe Michael can fill in the details.

We took the catamaran all around Sydney waters. Michael mentioned Minnamurra - I've been away from Sydney too long and looked it up - it's in the Illawarra. Oh, was that the one where Derek came to teach us about fishing or was that the Port Hacking (Gunnamatta Bay) trip? I do recall Botany Bay where they used to hold catamaran races, and I recall we took it out on Lake George near Canberra - weaving around the fence posts.

Above all I recall our outing on Sydney Harbour. It was going peacefully until suddenly one of the wooden hulls was ripped open. We had that hull underwater with the mainsail on the surface, and how the hell could we get the wreck to shore. I guess we shouted to the bemused onlookers enjoying their own boats on the Harbour. Fortunately a really nice couple in a speedboat (!really!) came to help. The chap towed us very slowly by giving very short bursts on his racing machine, being careful to not damage his boat. We were very grateful to these people. I'm pretty sure it was Rose Bay (not Double Bay) so that we came ashore on a narrow beach at Point Piper of all places, and they were definitely not happy little campers!! I recall being very polite and explaining our predicament. Anyway, Don brought his car and the trailer around to Point Piper and we unbolted the hulls and mast and carried it all out to the street through the property we landed on. Hence home to Don's place, where the syndicate actually managed to repair the broken hull. Don, with his tech expertise, was definitely the lead boat repairer. It's amazing what epoxy, varnish and paint can do.

That's about the limit of my recall. I'm sure we sailed the catamaran after the SydHarb disaster, but I don't recall the sequence of the outings. I recall we chipped in when Don renewed the trailer licence, but the syndicate lapsed and Don inherited the boat and trailer. I hope it went to a good home, and thanks to the syndicate for fun times.

--TonyP

TonyP first post

G'Day to fellow old-timers. It's in nature of a test as a newbie on this site. I've just accepted the invitation from Leo to try some memory recalls. Memories have been stirred so BS can freely flow. Hope you enjoy.

Three things.

One. My protective web ID is mostly "Carl Marks" - get it, get it - Oh well I think that makes Google call me Carl. I'll see in this test post. I have a similar ID with Microsoft, and these giants follow me all over the web. Spooky.

Two. If I post about say cloud chamber work, I might need a separate tab on the home page?? Time will tell.

Three. I encourage all fellow oldies to comment on the posts, and please send some posts.

TonyP aka Carl

and another

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Bio entry by Laurie Wilson

Laurie has provided a brief Bio on his professional life since joining the department.  Read it in the "This is Your Life" section.

Real Physics vs Ideal Physics - Jim's Magnum Opus.

I asked Jim: "What is your 'magnum opus'?".  His reply:

This is based on what I have been doing in retirement besides lecturing and tutoring. I have produced a paper every year from 2000-2010, except for a break in 2005-6 when I had cancer, at AAHPSSS conferences This started from my interest in teaching mechanics in 1995 or thereabouts. I started by rescuing Newton from the textbooks: these days it is taught by first requiring an inertial reference frame to make Newton's Laws of Motion valid. As I had never been taught this back in 1957 or taught this when I first started lecturing in 1965, I wanted to find out why. There turns out to be a deeper reason besides changing the foundation of mechanics from dynamics to kinematics and that is a shift in the philosophical base from Realism to Idealism. This has its own history. Anyway dynamics it is and Newton is fine except for inertia. This is inadequate, but the medieval concept of impetus fills the bill. Then it goes on to remove the reference frames from relativity i.e. removes relativity, which goes on to having repercussions in cosmology.

The relativity sections have been road tested, besides the conference, at the Philosophy Dept, Centre for Time in 2007 and in 2008.  There is lots more and it is going to upset everybody. The working title is Real Physics vs Ideal Physics (Nature vs Ideology). There is not a book quite like it as it grows out of teaching, rather than research or scholarship. The problems grow out of errors understandable at the first year level; it is very much about mass space and time---the things we rush over at the very beginning of first year.  It doesn't take the salami slices approach but redoes the entire foundations of mechanics in one hit. When you try to correct one part a referee will object from another part that has also to be corrected. It is substantially finished.

Jim McCaughan - best selling author

Apart from his definitive papers on the density spectrum, Jim has written some general articles on Physics - it's history and how it's taught.

I asked Jim: "Can you give me some references for the books you have had a hand in writing? Are they generally available?"  Jim replied:

Ever Reaping Something New

was published by the Science Faculty. There were many copies available until fairly recently from the Faculty Office, but there was a flood or at least dampness where they were stored and they had to be thrown out. There is a copy in Archives in Fisher and possibly in Fisher itself. There may be also a copy in Physics, but things get reorganised over time so wouldn't be confident about it. In my chapter on Physics, the section on Threlfall was the first in print about him. I gave talks on him at least on three occasions. Professor Rod Holme of Melbourne, the only Professor of HPS anywhere in Australia did an important scholarly work on him: First Physicist of Australia.

The Messel Era 

was published by Pergamon Press as part of HM's final Science School in his retirement year of '87. They were distributed to the participating schools free of charge. They were turfed out of the storeroom in Physics basement sometime in the nineties; I saved two boxes of them. If anyone is interested would be happy to give them a free copy. Pollock and Vonwiller appear in the Aust. Dict.Biog. MUP Vols 11 and 12 respectively.

SUGAR - the movie!

Who said nostalgia ain't what it used to be.  Laurie Wilson has provided a 'home movie' of some of the action at Narrabri during the SUGAR years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_zQOs_zCKI

Laurie adds wistfully..."Something I would be interested in is more recent developments in the field.  It seems to be an area where remarkably little has happened since the 1970s; People seem to be still speculating about the same things we were back then.  But recent news & discoveries are always of interest."

Mini Memoir - by Jim McCaughan

Jim has contributed a fascinating account of his journey through the Cosmic Ray department.  Probably a bit longer than would be appropriate for a 'Post' - so you can read it in the "This Your Life" tab.

Pilliga Panic

I suspect I have already bored people with this story before - this is the danger of relying on the memories of old codgers to talk about the past!  It must have been around 1965-66 when I did my first tour of duty to the SUGAR installation at Narrabri. After several days helping the staff - Paul Kohn et al - to set up and maintain various bits of equipment, both at the base and out in the Pilliga scrub, I volunteered to do the daily chore of doing the rounds of the detectors to replace the magnetic tapes and batteries.  It was already late afternoon when I set out (alone) in the departmental utility and headed for the first station that needed service.

After completing the required tasks, I hopped into the ute ready to head for the next station...and then the bloody thing wouldn't start ...no matter how many times I turned the key or lifted the bonnet! Dusk was approaching, There were no mobile phones or CB radios available, The sounds of the forest - enchanting under other circumstances - seemed particularly menacing to this city slicker, imagining an uncomfortable night huddled in the van.  After deciding to give it one last try, I suddenly noticed that the stick shift was still in Drive. Although I had owned and driven several cars for the previous 5+ years, they were all manual - I wasn't used to an automatic!  After much relief and successfully completing my round, I returned to base, but I can't remember whether I confessed my stupidity at the time!

Why is it so?

The motivation for this Blog came from discussions between myself (Leo Goorevich), Lawrie Peak and Mick Ryan. The general concept was:

"...to have something in a humorous vein, pointing out the esoteric backgrounds and foibles/idiosyncrasies of each individual (past and present)...in the Cosmic Ray Group.  It might be a useful memory jogger when we are doddering around in a nursing home!  As well as regular luncheon attendees, it would be aimed at those who, for various reasons, are unable to attend.  In addition to the factual history I think it would be great to include as much human interest and humorous material as possible."

A straw poll showed some enthusiasm for the concept, so I have jumped in and initiated this in the only platform I am familiar with - Google's Blogger - which has the advantage of requiring no technical expertise - and is free!

Although I have included some very rudimentary material to get things rolling, it is essential that as many people as possible add their memories and anecdotes to this team blog.  Beware - I will be keeping track of anyone who has NOT contributed - with the aim of naming and shaming them!

To begin with, anyone on the internet who sees the site will be able to read the material on it. (We can make it more exclusive if people so wish).  To publish a post, or to comment on someone else's post or tab, you have to have a Google account and become a member of the team (via the administrator - viz. LG to start with).  Both are very simple to do.  Better still everyone should become an administrator so as to add, delete or edit any and all the material on the blog.  It will then operate in an anarchic way - a bit like Wikipedia.  Alternatively, just send me, by email, any material you wish to include, and I will insert it on your behalf.

Over to you...