INTRODUCTION

An attempt to elucidate the history of the development of radio astronomy in different aspects and using different sources seems to be quite relevant and useful. But unfortunately, in spite of sincere aspiration, I have not been able to write a paper which would correspond to the requirements of the editor of the present book. The main reason is that I am evidently not an astronomer, but a physicist both by education and by the experience of many years. Astronomy became for me a “part-time job”. While in my personal life it happened rather accidentally, from a more general point of view it happened on the wave of a truly great process of transformation of astronomy from optical to “all-wave”. In the course of this process many physicists, radio engineers and other professionals took interest in new astronomical methods and problems and “came” to astronomy (often irritating professional astronomers by their poor knowledge of classical astronomy and even of proper terminology). Some of the neophytes became real astronomers, while others did not give up their previous specialities and spent only part of thér time in astronomy. It is actually not even a question of time, but rather the styte of the work. A physicist, say, may devote all his efforts to astrophysics (which is now rather difficult to separate from physics proper), but if he insufficiently commands purely astronomical material, he nevertheless does not become a real astronomer, who must know well the astronomical classics and literature, observational methods and results, etc. In a word, I am not a professional astronomer and therefore my astronomical works are somewhat fragmentary and episodic, except, possibly, those connected with cosmic ray astrophysics.