Power, politics and personalities in Australian astronomy : William Ernest Cooke and the triangulation of the Pacific by wireless time signals

In 1916 the New South Wales Government Astronomer, Professor Ernest Cooke, proposed the triangulation of the Pacific by wireless time signals, in order to improve mapping. The world was at war, and this scientific advancement was urgently required. The State Government gave Cooke authority to proceed, but later rescinded this decision. It also prevented Cooke from attending the first International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly in Rome in 1919. Although Cooke became Chairman of the Longitude Committee of the Australian National Research Council in 1922, attended the Pan-Pacific Science Association Congress in 1923, joined the IAU’s Commission 18 (Longitude by Wireless) in 1925, and continued to promote triangulation of the Pacific by wireless, the Sydney Observatory Board of Visitors, bureaucrats and politicians all continued to block him. This paper examines the interplay between Federal and State politics in international astronomy, using Cooke’s triangulation of the Pacific project as a case study