Ruby Payne-Scott

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Ruby Violet Payne-Scott (later Hall) (May 28, 1912 - May 25, 1981) was an Australian pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy, and is believed to have been the first female radio astronomer.

Born Grafton, NSW,Australia 28 May 1912; died Sydney, NSW, 25 May 1981. Moved to Sydney to live with her aunt and complete secondary school. She won two scholarships to undertake tertiary education at the University of Sydney where she completed a BSc in 1933, a MSc in 1936, and a Diploma of Education in 1938.

Research fellow, Cancer Research Committee, University of Sydney, 1932-35. Engineer, AWA Ltd, 1939-41. Division of Radiophysics, CSIR (now CSIRO), 1941-51. Home duties 1951-62. Mathematics/science teacher, Danebank Church of England School, Sydney, 1963-75.

Ruby Payne-Scott was an Australian pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy.

One of the best physicists that Australia has ever produced and one of the first people in the world to consider the possibility of radio astronomy, and thereby responsible for what is now a fundamental part of the modern lexicon of science, this brilliant woman was often the only female in her classes at the University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Her career arguable reached it zenith while working for the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research organisation (then called CSIR now known as CSIRO) at Lucas Heights, Sydney.

During WW II she was negaged in top secret work investigating radar. She was also a the time a communist and an early advocate for women’s rights.

An avid bushwalker she met and fell in love with a fellow bushwalker, Bill Hall. They secretly married as at that time the Commonwealth government had legislated that a married woman could not hold a permanent position within the public service. She continued to work for CSIR while secretly married until her first pregnancy raised the issue of her marriage. She was obliged to resign when her marriage was exposed. Her treatment by CSIRO resulted in some years of written exchanges expressing the unfairness of this legislation.

She never changed her name - even after her marriage became public though she and Bill Hall remained married to her death, having had two children - Peter Hall, a renowned mathematician, and Fiona Hall, one of Australia's great visual artists.

Ruby Payne-Scott's publications include Relative intensity of spectral lines in indium and gallium. Nature, 131 (1933), 365-366. (With W.H. Love) Tissue cultures exposed to the influence of a magnetic field. Nature, 137 (1936), 277. Notes on the use of photographic films as a means of measuring gamma ray dosage. Sydney. University. Cancer Research Committee. Journal., 7 (1936), 170-175. The wavelength distribution of the scattered radiation in a medium traversed by a beam of X or gamma rays. British Journal of Radiology, N.S., 10 (1937), 850-870. (With A.L. Green) Superheterodyne tracking charts. II. A.W.A. Technical Review, 5 (1941), 251-274; Wireless Engineer, 19 (1942), 290-302. A note on the design of iron-cored coils at audio frequencies. A.W.A. Technical Review, 6 (1943), 91-96.