Research
In true scientific fashion, Helliwell tried to understand the mechanism involved in the production of whistlers. He conducted experiments at the VLF outpost, Siple Station in West Antarctica, which was active from 1971 to 1988. Since the wavelength of VLF radio signals is huge (a frequency of 10 kHz corresponds to a wavelength of 30 kilometers, or 18.64 miles), the Siple Station had an antenna that was thirteen miles long. The antenna was used to transmit VLF radio signals into Earth's magnetosphere, to be detected half a world away in Canada. It was possible to inject these signals into the magnetosphere, since the ionosphere is transparent to these low frequencies.
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“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
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