400 Years of the Telescope

Up this morning with worries about how Bev Bevis was after her fall last night--it turns out that she indeed broke her wrist, and may need a plate or pin, after staying at the hospital until 4 AM. Richard Hills was nevertheless game to go out and film at the radio astronomy observatory, where pulsars were discovered and radio interferometry made important strides. On a fine fair morning we heard Richard tell us about the spectrum and the Newtonian reflectors used at many radio observatories, then drove off toward Gatwick, with a stop to buy an extra hard suitcase for camera equipment.

This stop, plus traffic around the London ring road, left us worried about the time to make the earlier flight, on which Krista, Kris, and I were booked--as we drove in haste, somehow the car behind, driven by Scott with Anita beside him, failed to follow us toward the airport, and despite our frantic honking and signalling, disappeared from our sight down the wrong highway. We proceeded to the
airport, discovered that we had time to make our flight--plenty of time, in fact, since it was an hour and a half late, including the wait on the runway--but when we got to Pisa, only then learned that the others' flight was not to Pisa but to Florence. Since Scott and Anita had no knowledge of the hotel in which they were to lodge, this created a problem. My friend Steve Shore, there to meet me, did his best to help Kris deal with this, and I think somehow a message was finally sent via
the airline. In any case when I called Kris at 12:45 AM, all was well--except for the lack of a full explanation as to how this all came about. I went with Steve and his girlfriend to a fine pizzeria in the center of Pisa, across from Galileo's house, and ate and drank appropriately. Now it's time to sleep before rising to go up to Florence tomorrow; however, we won't be filming Mayor until later, because an Alitalia strike has delayed his arrival from Geneva.

So--some success, some difficulty, some prospects.