Professor Antony Hewish
Emeritus Professor of Radio Astronomy
Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Lord’s Bridge

Antony Hewish won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 for pioneering research in radio astrophysics. He is a Fellow of Churchill College.

The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is part of the Cavendish Laboratory’s Astrophysics Group. Much of the early development in radio astronomy was conducted here. From 1957, facilities were built at Lord’s Bridge about five miles from Cambridge. The Interplanetary Scintillation Array was built in 1967 and originally covered four and a half acres or 57 tennis courts. There were over 1,000 posts linked by over 120 miles of cable. It was designed by Professor Hewish to measure the high-frequency fluctuations of radio sources and led to the discovery of pulsars. The 32-metre dish in the background of this photograph is part of the Merlin array which links seven radio telescopes around the United Kingdom.