Dr. Wilson had a wonderful sense of humor that always kept class interesting.  We will miss him!

Andrew Wilson Quotes

Astronomy 610 – Instrumentation

Fall 2004

** my favorites

8/30/04

First day of class – he split his lip and continually dabs at it with a tissue. To a student: “Are you afraid of blood? Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“If the final exam counts for 50% or more, there’s usually a revolution.”

Regarding constellations: “… big bears, small bears, mother bears, baby bears, porridge…”

9/1/04

“… this is the summer solstice, where people, mostly those in western Europe, take off their clothes and dance around stone circles…”

9/13/04

regarding Greenbank: “And fortunately it didn’t fall on anybody, but it sort of startled the observers at the time.”

9/20/04

“Eyes cannot integrate.”

9/29/04

In my notes next to the heading Beam Swinging: “This sounds fun.”

10/4/04

“Think about this triangle in your spare moments.” (regarding his diagram illustrating phase difference in an interferometer… or something.)

10/6/04

Andrew Wilson writes on the wall. With permanent marker.

“I know how important it is to know the state rodent of New Jersey or the state flower of North Dakota… and there isn’t one, because no flowers grow there.” (discussing American education and some of us not knowing Young’s double slit experiment)

10/11/04

**“If I did this right, you would understand a great deal, but that’s not really what this course is supposed to be about.”

10/25/04

“If the radio source changes while you’re doing this, you have a problem, and you get what is technically called a mess.”

10/27/04

“It’s a real number… Like… 1 or 2… Right.”

“And now there will be a short break while I go for a call of nature… well, I feel better, how about you?”

**Moving the dishes at Westerbork: “Only important people were allowed to do this. They always said, it’s because of the insurance that we can’t let you do it, Andrew…”

11/17/04

**“Nobody’s seen my pot, have they, with ‘Hubble Space Telescope’ written on it… it’s black… with ‘made in China’ on the bottom?”

“This is ein lichtstärkes komafries Spiegel system.”

“Personally I like inches. Right? They’re nice good things, good size?”

“The night assistant is there to protect the telescope from the astronomer.”

**“Astronomers are on the list of the most dangerous professions, along with what we call steeple jacks and drug dealers in northeast Washington.”

“Now I’ll tell you three stories of people dying at telescopes.”

11/29/04

**General Properties of Spectral Analysis: 4) Finesse – “This has nothing to do with ladies walking around in Helsinki.”

12/1/04

“a child’s rectangular play wooden block” – for when he’s playing rectangularly.

Andrew tells the hammering guy to do something else till 3:15.