JohnWright
September 23rd, 2002, 01:19 PM
Hi All,
Dr. Robert Forward, famed scifi author and futurist, just passed away. He gave a great talk at the 1989 SEDS International Conference in Pasadena (one of the cool benefits of hanging out with SEDS=)
John
Friends,
It is my sad duty to inform you that Dr. Robert L. Forward has left
this mortal Earth.
Bob passed away early in the morning on September 21, 2002. A
memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, September 28th, at 1 p.m.
at the Westwood Hills Congregational Church in Westwood, CA (Los
Angeles area).
Bob Forward leaves behind a truly astounding legacy. In addition to
his pioneering work on solar sails, space tethers, antimatter
propulsion, and other advanced space propulsion technologies, Bob
also performed seminal work in several other areas, including smart
structures and gravitational astronomy.
In addition to his technical work, Bob also strove -- through his
popular science writings, science fiction books, and countless
lectures -- to educate and inspire the next generations of
scientists. The many letters and emails that people sent to him over
the past several months are testament to the fact that his work had a
strong influence on the careers of many of us. Those letters meant a
great deal to him.
Bob prepared several obituaries for the various professional
organizations to which he belonged. One of them is given below:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
-
Robert Lull Forward
The intelligent pattern of protoplasm that had been Robert L. Forward
ceased coherent operation on September 21, 2002.
Robert Lull Forward died at home of brain cancer at the age of 70.
Forward was born 15 August 1932 in Geneva, New York. After
graduation from the niversity of Maryland in 1954 with a BS degree in
Physics and a Second ieutenant commission in the Air Force, he
married Martha Neil Dodson and erved two years stateside during the
closing years of the Korean War. Upon eaving the service Forward was
awarded a Hughes Aircraft Company Graduate Research Fellowship, which
he used to obtain a MS in Applied Physics
from UCLA in 1958 and a PhD in Physics from the University of
Maryland in 1965.
Forward was one of the early pioneers in the field of experimental
gravitational radiation astronomy. For his PhD thesis he built and
operated the first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational
radiation under the direction of Profs. Weber and Zipoy. The antenna
is now in the Smithsonian Museum.
Forward worked for 31 years at the Hughes Aircraft Company Corporate
Research Laboratories in Malibu, CA in positions of increasing
responsibility until he took early retirement in 1987 to spend more
time on writing novels and his aerospace consulting company business -
Forward Unlimited . During his tenure at Hughes, he received 18
patents, and published numerous papers on experimental gravity
instruments and measurements, including the first paper on using the
normal modes of the Earth to set an upper limit on interstellar
millicycle gravitational radiation; a paper on the details of the
wideband "chirp" signal to be expected from the gravitational
collapse of a binary neutron star pair; and a method for "flattening"
spacetime over a hatbox-sized region in an orbiting microgravity
space lab to the picogravity level.
Forward also published the first paper showing that it was possible
to build and operate a laser interferometer gravitational radiation
antenna that was photon noise limited over the band from 1-20 kHz,
and that further improvements in gravitational strain sensitivity
needed only more laser power and longer lengths in the interferometer
arms. The broadband gravitational strain sensitivity his laser
interferometer antenna reached in 1972 was not bettered for over a
decade. Forward also invented the multidirectional spherical bar
antenna for gravitational radiation, and the rotating cruciform
gravity gradiometer Mass Detector for Lunar Mascon measurements
(which Misner, Wheeler & Thorne pointed out can detect
the curvature of spacetime produced by a fist).
From the time of his retirement from Hughes in 1987 onward, Forward
was a consultant for the Air Force and NASA on advanced space
propulsion concepts, with an emphasis on propulsion methods
(lightsail, antimatter, electrodynamic tether, etc.), that use
physical principles other than chemical or nuclear rockets. In 1992
he formed the company, Tethers Unlimited, with Dr. Robert P. Hoyt.
When he reached 70 he "retired" to parttime consulting and writing.
In addition to over 200 papers and articles, Forward published
11 "hard" science fiction novels, where the science is as accurate as
possible-consistent with telling a good story. Forward "taught"
science through his novels. His first book, DRAGON'S EGG, expanded
upon Frank Drake's idea of tiny fast-living creatures living on the
surface of a neutron star. Forward called it, "A textbook on neutron
star physics disguised as a novel." The book is often assigned
as "extra credit reading" in beginning astronomy courses. The
science in his books has often been novel enough that many of his
fiction books have been referenced in journal publications as "prior
art publications".
Downloads of many of Forward's papers can be obtained by visiting his
web site at: <http://www.ForwardUnlimited.com>.
Dr. Robert Forward, famed scifi author and futurist, just passed away. He gave a great talk at the 1989 SEDS International Conference in Pasadena (one of the cool benefits of hanging out with SEDS=)
John
Friends,
It is my sad duty to inform you that Dr. Robert L. Forward has left
this mortal Earth.
Bob passed away early in the morning on September 21, 2002. A
memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, September 28th, at 1 p.m.
at the Westwood Hills Congregational Church in Westwood, CA (Los
Angeles area).
Bob Forward leaves behind a truly astounding legacy. In addition to
his pioneering work on solar sails, space tethers, antimatter
propulsion, and other advanced space propulsion technologies, Bob
also performed seminal work in several other areas, including smart
structures and gravitational astronomy.
In addition to his technical work, Bob also strove -- through his
popular science writings, science fiction books, and countless
lectures -- to educate and inspire the next generations of
scientists. The many letters and emails that people sent to him over
the past several months are testament to the fact that his work had a
strong influence on the careers of many of us. Those letters meant a
great deal to him.
Bob prepared several obituaries for the various professional
organizations to which he belonged. One of them is given below:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
-
Robert Lull Forward
The intelligent pattern of protoplasm that had been Robert L. Forward
ceased coherent operation on September 21, 2002.
Robert Lull Forward died at home of brain cancer at the age of 70.
Forward was born 15 August 1932 in Geneva, New York. After
graduation from the niversity of Maryland in 1954 with a BS degree in
Physics and a Second ieutenant commission in the Air Force, he
married Martha Neil Dodson and erved two years stateside during the
closing years of the Korean War. Upon eaving the service Forward was
awarded a Hughes Aircraft Company Graduate Research Fellowship, which
he used to obtain a MS in Applied Physics
from UCLA in 1958 and a PhD in Physics from the University of
Maryland in 1965.
Forward was one of the early pioneers in the field of experimental
gravitational radiation astronomy. For his PhD thesis he built and
operated the first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational
radiation under the direction of Profs. Weber and Zipoy. The antenna
is now in the Smithsonian Museum.
Forward worked for 31 years at the Hughes Aircraft Company Corporate
Research Laboratories in Malibu, CA in positions of increasing
responsibility until he took early retirement in 1987 to spend more
time on writing novels and his aerospace consulting company business -
Forward Unlimited . During his tenure at Hughes, he received 18
patents, and published numerous papers on experimental gravity
instruments and measurements, including the first paper on using the
normal modes of the Earth to set an upper limit on interstellar
millicycle gravitational radiation; a paper on the details of the
wideband "chirp" signal to be expected from the gravitational
collapse of a binary neutron star pair; and a method for "flattening"
spacetime over a hatbox-sized region in an orbiting microgravity
space lab to the picogravity level.
Forward also published the first paper showing that it was possible
to build and operate a laser interferometer gravitational radiation
antenna that was photon noise limited over the band from 1-20 kHz,
and that further improvements in gravitational strain sensitivity
needed only more laser power and longer lengths in the interferometer
arms. The broadband gravitational strain sensitivity his laser
interferometer antenna reached in 1972 was not bettered for over a
decade. Forward also invented the multidirectional spherical bar
antenna for gravitational radiation, and the rotating cruciform
gravity gradiometer Mass Detector for Lunar Mascon measurements
(which Misner, Wheeler & Thorne pointed out can detect
the curvature of spacetime produced by a fist).
From the time of his retirement from Hughes in 1987 onward, Forward
was a consultant for the Air Force and NASA on advanced space
propulsion concepts, with an emphasis on propulsion methods
(lightsail, antimatter, electrodynamic tether, etc.), that use
physical principles other than chemical or nuclear rockets. In 1992
he formed the company, Tethers Unlimited, with Dr. Robert P. Hoyt.
When he reached 70 he "retired" to parttime consulting and writing.
In addition to over 200 papers and articles, Forward published
11 "hard" science fiction novels, where the science is as accurate as
possible-consistent with telling a good story. Forward "taught"
science through his novels. His first book, DRAGON'S EGG, expanded
upon Frank Drake's idea of tiny fast-living creatures living on the
surface of a neutron star. Forward called it, "A textbook on neutron
star physics disguised as a novel." The book is often assigned
as "extra credit reading" in beginning astronomy courses. The
science in his books has often been novel enough that many of his
fiction books have been referenced in journal publications as "prior
art publications".
Downloads of many of Forward's papers can be obtained by visiting his
web site at: <http://www.ForwardUnlimited.com>.