Comments on: James Van Allen 1914 - 2006

James Van Allen 1914 - 2006

hardcode — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:48:59 -0800

James Van Allen the discoverer of the Van Allen Radiation Belts died today, aged 91.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:52:22 -0800

and good riddance. i mean, .

By: pwb503

pwb503 — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:01:32 -0800

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:02:48 -0800

The mere fact that he didn't make it to the moon helps prove THAT IT CAN'T BE DONE! Sleep well, James. You've always been one of my favorite researchers.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:07:37 -0800

....oooOOO))) .

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:11:28 -0800

I loved him on Dawson's Creek.

By: pmbuko

pmbuko — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:02:09 -0800

Great. Now we can finally get to the moon!

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:08:51 -0800

I saw my first aurora borealis from the roof of Van Allen Hall. .

By: idigress

idigress — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:18:53 -0800

I, too, have fond memories of my Astronomy classes in Van Allen Hall, and of making the discovery that, "Oh sure, Van Allen belts, wait... a professor? Here? In Iowa?" .

By: econous

econous — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:22:30 -0800

Actually he was the inventor. Easy mistake to make, like saying Archimedes discovered the Archimedes Screw. Or Hailey discovered a comet. Just silly really. .

By: Arch_Stanton

Arch_Stanton — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:02:35 -0800

Make it three Hawkeyes. Van Allen Hall represent!

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:14:14 -0800

Four Hawkeyes! Van Allen was a really neat guy.

By: Aspie

Aspie — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:23:06 -0800

I attended a lecture he gave in the late 70's. I was still in High School, and after the lecture a few of us went up to talk to him, and he invited us to ice cream - walked with us, and bought us all ice cream. A truly humble great mind.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:31:19 -0800

All of five feet long and six inches in diameter, Explorer I became America's first artificial moon on January 31, 1958. The instrumentation designed and built by Van Allen and his students worked perfectly: fortunately they had a little experience to build on.

By: Schlimmbesserung

Schlimmbesserung — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:37:28 -0800

By: quite unimportant

quite unimportant — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:37:33 -0800

Van Allen Radiation Belt.... I just like saying it. .

By: jdfan

jdfan — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:28:33 -0800

There's a moon in the sky It's called the moon And everybody is there, including, Saturn, Mercury Saturn, Venus Saturn, Mars Saturn, Jupiter The Van Allen Belt .... Many gamma rays around it Van Allen Belt surrounds it This is the Space Age Please don't worry This is the Space Age Just don't worry This is the Space Age Others like you Ahhh ahhh..........

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:02:38 -0800

"And well, it starts like this -- it starts like this: I was up in the Van Allen belt -- this is factual, and I don't know why they're scared of the Van Allen belt, because it's simply hot. You'd be surprised how warm space is. Get down amongst the clouds and so forth, it can get pretty cold and damp. But you get well up and sunlight shining around and that sort of thing, it's quite hot. And the Van Allen belt was radioactively hot. A lot of photons get trapped in that area and so forth. And I was up there watching the sunrise. Well, that was very interesting. And my perception was very good, and I was taking a look at Norway and Essex and the places around, you know, and getting myself sort of oriented. And then something happened to me that I didn't know quite what had happened to me. I thought some facsimiles must have appeared in front of me, but they didn't look like facsimiles. And some other things happened and I had a feeling like I might possibly go into the sun. And a few other little uncomfortablenesses there where... That wasn't what awed me. But I got confused. I got confused because the sun was suddenly larger and then it was smaller and somehow or another I was doing a change of space process that I myself was not familiar with. And it made me sort of bite off my thetan fingernails just a little bit, you know?" -L. Ron Hubbard

By: Deathalicious

Deathalicious — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:01:27 -0800

. Nice scientists are cool.

By: Megafly

Megafly — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 11:09:15 -0800

By: anomie

anomie — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:22:22 -0800

Six hawkeyes. Loved seeing Van Allen meandering about the building. I don't think he ever retired. .