Editing Ruby Payne-Scott (section)

==Contributions to radar and radio astronomy==

[[Image:Jessica-chapman.csiro.rubyalecchris.jpg|thumb|300px|upright|With Alec Little (middle) and [[Wilbur Norman Christiansen|"Chris" Christiansen]] at the [[Potts Hill, New South Wales|Potts Hill Reservoir]] Division of Radiophysics field station in about 1948]]
[[Image:Jessica-chapman.URSI Group.jpg|thumb|300px|Participants in the International Union of Radio Science conference at the University of Sydney (1952). Payne-Scott is in the front row.]]

On 18 August 1941, Payne-Scott joined the Radiophysics Laboratory of the [[Australian government]]'s [[CSIRO|Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation]] (CSIRO). During [[World War II]], she was engaged in [[Classified information|top secret]] work investigating [[radar]] technology, becoming Australia's expert on the detection of aircraft using [[Plan Position Indicator]] (PPI) displays. After the war, in 1948, she published a comprehensive report on factors affecting visibility on PPI displays.{{r|Goss2010|p=64}}  She also made important contributions to prototype radar systems operating in the [[L band|25cm microwave band]], achieving significant improvements.{{r|Goss2010|p=60}}

As the focus of the Radiophysics Lab switched from developing radar systems to repurposing them for scientific pursuits, she was a major contributor to setting new goals. Payne-Scott's expertise as both a physicist and an electrical engineer distinguished her among her colleagues, most of whom lacked a formal physics education.{{r|Goss2010|p=81}}  In October 1945, together with [[Joseph Lade Pawsey|Joe Pawsey]], who acknowledged her potential in the field of radio astronomy and motivated her to apply her skills using radios techniques, and Lindsay McCready, she wrote to ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' documenting a connection between [[sunspots]] and increased radio emissions from the Sun (published February 1946).<ref name="Pawsey1946"/>

In December 1945, she authored a summary of "all knowledge available and measurements taken" at the Radiophysics Lab, and suggested future research directions that "set the thinking" for the group.<ref name="Sullivan2009"/>{{rp|130–131}}

In February 1946, Payne-Scott, McCready, and Pawsey made use of the [[Sea interferometry|sea-cliff]] location of their observation sites to perform the first radio [[interferometry]] for astronomical observations, their observations confirming that intense radio 'bursts' originated from the sunspots themselves.{{r|Sullivan2009|p=132}}  Their paper was also the first suggestion of [[Fourier synthesis]] in radio astronomy, an idea that hinted at the field's future of [[aperture synthesis]].{{r|Goss2010|p=102}}

From 1946 to 1951, Payne-Scott focused on these 'burst' radio emissions from the Sun, and is credited with discovering Type I and III bursts, and with gathering data that helped characterise Types II and IV.  As part of this work, together with Alec Little, she designed and built a new 'swept-lobe' interferometer that could draw a map of solar radio emission strength and [[polarization (waves)|polarization]] once every second, and would automatically record to a movie camera whenever emissions reached a certain intensity.{{r|Goss2010|p=171}}