Edinburgh's Forgotten Astronomer with Bruce Vickery
Saturday 5th June 11am
How many people in Edinburgh know that it was Astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth who introduced the Time Ball and Time Gun to Edinburgh – legacies that remain to this day?
But he did not stop there! Here was a man who made mountain top astronomy a reality and was involved in pushing Spectroscopy and Meteorology to new heights.
All this whilst doing pioneering work in photography, and turning out brilliant art works.
Too many activities for one talk! This talk will take a controversial aspect of his life and work and present it from his perspective.
Bruce Vickery is a Mathematical Physicist who in the 1970's worked in the Oncology Department of the Western General Hospital on the software that determined the prescription of anyone who was treated for Cancer using High Energy X-ray Beams. That software was used "worldwide".
Subsequently he worked in Ferranti for around 20 years developing, managing, and selling software and systems for front line Defence Aircraft. It's his Black Box Flight Data Recorder that is on the Typhoon Aircraft.
In retirement he is pursuing his interest in Family History, Astronomy, and in the technology of the Enigma machine that was "cracked" at Bletchley Park in the 1940's.
