Patrick Thaddeus

Updated on Oct 29, 2023

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Nationality American Doctoral students Tom Dame		Fields Astronomy Name Patrick Thaddeus

Institutions Harvard UniversityColumbia UniversityGoddard Institute for Space Studies Known for CfA 1.2 m Millimeter-Wave Telescope Alma mater Columbia University, University of Oxford, University of Delaware Notable awards Herschel Medal, Fulbright Program Institution Harvard University, Columbia University, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Doctoral advisor Charles H. Townes

Books That Shaped America: Stranger in a Strange Land

Patrick Thaddeus (June 6, 1932 – April 28, 2017) was the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy Emeritus at Harvard University. He is best known for mapping the Milky Way galaxy in Carbon Monoxide and was responsible for the construction of the CfA 1.2 m Millimeter-Wave Telescope.

Education

Thaddeus graduated from University of Delaware in 1953 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship through which he attended the University of Oxford, graduating with a Master's degree in theoretical physics in 1955. His doctoral work was at Columbia University, where he earned his Ph.D. under Charles Hard Townes in 1960 with a thesis titled Beam Maser Spectroscopy.

Career

After earning his doctorate, Thaddeus stayed at Columbia University as a research associate in the Columbia Radiation Laboratory until 1961, when he took a position working for NASA at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where he remained until 1986. He also taught at Columbia University during that period, from 1965 until 1986. It was during his time at Columbia that the CfA 1.2 m Millimeter-Wave Telescope was built. In 1986, Thaddeus (along with the 1.2 meter telescope and other scientists on the team) moved to Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his teaching career and remained Professor Emeritus until his death in April 2017.

Thaddeus held a few other teaching positions during his career at institutions including State University of New York, Stony Brook (1966–1967), University of California, Berkeley (1968), and University of Cambridge (1983–1984).

Thaddeus and his colleagues designed a radio telescope custom-built for the task of mapping the entire Milky Way in CO. The 1.2 meter Millimeter-Wave Telescope was designed with a relatively small dish and consequently a relatively large beamwidth of about 1/8 degree, which can be likened to a wide-angle lens. With this new instrument, it suddenly became possible to map large stretches of sky in relatively small amounts of time. The telescope is nicknamed "The Mini" because of its unusually small size. Together, "The Mini" and its twin in Chile have obtained what is by far the most extensive, uniform, and widely used Galactic survey of interstellar carbon monoxide (CO).

Harvard astronomer Tom Dame, in collaboration with Thaddeus, discovered the Far 3 kpc Arm of the Milky Way.

Personal life

Thaddeus married the former Janice Farrar (daughter of John Chipman Farrar and Margaret Petherbridge Farrar) in 1963. Janice Farrar Thaddeus was a scholar, poet, editor, and former Harvard lecturer in English; she died in 2001 at the age of 68. They have two children: Eva and Michael.

Publications

Thaddeus authored or co-authored more than three hundred research papers and more than twenty invited papers in astronomy and physics.

Honors and awards

Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Chicago, 2003

Sir Harold Thompson Memorial Award, 2002

Herschel Medal, Royal Astronomical Society, 2001

Fairchild Distinguished Scholar, California Institute of Technology, 1994

Russell Marker Lecturer, Pennsylvania State University, 1989

Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1989

Election to the National Academy of Sciences, 1987

Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, NASA, 1985

John C. Lindsay Memorial Award, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, 1976

Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, NASA, 1970

Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 1961–1964

Fulbright Fellowship, 1953–1955

Professional Memberships

Fellow, American Physical Society

American Astronomical Society

International Astronomical Union

Sigma Xi

Advisory Committees

NASA Astrobiology Oversight Committee, 1999–2002

Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA), 1999–

Chair: Task Group on Space Astronomy and Astrophysics, National Research Council, 1996–97

President's Visiting Committee, Caltech, 1995

Visiting Committee, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 1991–94; Chair 1994

Steering Committee, SAO Submillimeter Array, 1993–

Director's Advisory Committee, NRAO Green Bank Telescope Project 1989–90

Astronomy Survey Committee 1989–90, Radio Astronomy Panel, Infrared Panel, and Theory and Laboratory Astrophysics Panel

Scientific Organizing Committee, IAU Symposium No. 147, on Fragmentation of Molecular Clouds and Star Formation, Grenoble, 1990

National Radio Astronomy Observatory Ad Hoc Long–Range Planning Committee, 1988

NASA Management Operations Working Group for Infrared Astronomy, 1987–1990

International Organizing Committee, Cologne– Zermatt International Symposium on the Physics and Chemistry of Interstellar Clouds, Zermatt, 1988

Scientific Committee, Meeting on "Polycyclic Molecules and Astrophysics," Les Houches, 1986

Visiting Committee, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 1983

AURA Visiting Committee (Kitt Peak, Cerro Tololo, and Sacramento Peak Observatories), 1983–86

NASA Management Operations Working Group for Airborne Astronomy, 1982–1986

Visiting Committee, Haystack Observatory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982–85; Chair, 1985

Scientific Organizing Committee, Symposium on the Orion Nebula to Honor Henry Draper, New York, 1981

Visiting Committee, Hat Creek Observatory, University of California, 1981

Universities Research Association (URA), Astronomy Advisory Committee, 1979–81

NASA Space Science Advisory Committee, 1979

Astronomy Survey Committee, 1978–80; Chair, Radio Astronomy Panel; report published as Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980s (National Academy Press, 1982;2)

Submillimeter Space Telescope Working Group, 1977

Editorial Board, The Astrophysical Journal, 1976–80

Scientific Organizing Committee, IAU Symposium No. 75, on "Star Formation," Geneva, 1976

Visiting Committee, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 1973–76

References

Patrick Thaddeus Wikipedia

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