The Big Bang

In 1959 Bell Labs built a large microwave antenna to support NASA's Project Echo which bounced radio waves off large metallic balloons satellites to transmit radio signals across the globe. A few years later this microwave antenna was use with Telstar the first communication satellite.  Two scientists at Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, got permission to use this microwave antenna to survey the sky and study radio emissions of the stars and Milky Way. As they used the antenna to look for radio emissions they found they had some background noise. Initially they assumed this noise was caused by a problem with the antenna or some interference from the surrounding area. However after eliminating all possible sources of noise (including cleaning the pigeon droppings out of the antenna and shooting the pigeons) they realized that this noise was not coming from some man made source but was some background noise that was coming from outside our galaxy.

At the same time a few Princeton astrophysicists who were being led by Robert Dicke were trying to find some evidence to support  the Big Bang theory. At the time there were two competing theories on the formation of the universe. The Steady State theory said that universe was static and unchanging and had always existed this way. The other theory was the Big Bang theory that said that the universe had started from a large cataclysmic explosion and was constantly expanding. At the time there was no observable evidence to back up the Big Bang theory but Robert Dicke had theorized that it would have left a low level microwave signature.

Penzias and Wilson hear about Dicke's work and contacted him. Dicke came down and listen to the background noise which immediately confirmed his theory. This lead to a joint paper published by Penzias , Wilson and Dicke that eventually lead to wide acceptance of the Big Bang theory and a Nobel Prize for Penzias and Wilson in 1978.

Its turns out that this microwave antenna known, as the Holmdel Horn Antenna, is at the highest point in Monmouth County. So as part of our ride today we visited this now national landmark. Unlike the last couple of highpoint rides where we got close but not really to the actual highpoint the plan today was to get to the actually highpoint. Also instead of a boring picture of some people standing on an nondescript piece of grass I wanted to get us all standing in front of the antenna. 

Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned. As Laura and I rode around the fence blocking the road to the antenna a guard in the building starting yelling at us with some urgency so we stopped. I suspect he would have called the police if we had gone any further. We tried to ask for permission to see the antenna but it is not allowed with out an appointment. Although the the antenna is open to the public you need to do it by appointment during the week. A fact that is not mentioned on any site I looked at regarding the antenna.   So instead of getting a picture of us in front of the antenna I got one just below looking at it through the woods. You really can't see the antenna but we got as close as we could. We also only got to around 340 ft which is 40 ft below the actual 380 ft high point. Oh well as least we got a good story to tell.

 

The rest of the ride was close to a normal Sandy Hook ride except for the fact that we came in to Sandy Hook from a slightly difference direction because of the detour to the antenna. This meant we missed doing the hills along the Navasink river. It was a clear day so we stopped at the top of the bridge on our way into Sandy Hook to get a couple of pictures of NY

We also stopped at the beach on Sandy Hook to see the beach and take a few more shots.

The ride back from Sandy Hook was made easier by a nice east wind and a newly paved Rumson Rd. At the end we go in just over 62 miles so we got our first metric in for the year.

Part of the fun of the highpoint rides is trying to find something interesting along the way. Although I had known the story of the Holmdel Horn Antenna I did not realize where it actually was so it was cool to kinda almost see it.