Thanks for the reply. Yes indeed, Bell was famous for its many discoveries and applications. It was also famous (among science and engineering pros of its time)

Thanks for the reply. Yes indeed, Bell was famous for its many discoveries and applications. It was also famous (among science and engineering pros of its time) for granting its employees lots of time to spend on their own projects. Why they dropped-the-ball on Jansky's find is probably complicated. The person that did lead the way to the (now enormous) field of radio astronomy was Grote Reber. He had a BSEE degree. It was his life-long passion, in his free time, at his own expense, and he had to struggle to get anyone to pay attention. He personally discovered Cygnus A in 1939 (and lots more). But he didn't get the physics Nobel in 1974. Instructive story:. http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS13/cs13p14.htm http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS13/cs13p14.htm