Dr. Hickson designed and built the composite container which
makes up the primary dish of NASA's LMT.
It is similar in design to the two other LMs also built by Hickson and shown here:
the UCLA 2.7m LIDAR and the UBC/Laval 2.7m telescope.
Dr. Hickson has been a friend and advisor from the early stages of NASA's LMT development.
Dr. Ermanno
Borra and his students have performed much pioneering work which has made the R&D
process smoother for
everyone involved. We are indebted to him and his group for the invaluable assistance they
have offered.
Mark Frantz at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at IUPUI
has a nice write-up of the the basic idea behind
liquid mirror
telescopes. He also has a good description of the mathematics and theory
behind the "Surface of a Spinning fluid"
