More than fifty years ago, I wrote a chapter in my doctoral thesis with a disarmingly simple title: “Noise”.

I was then a young OAS Research Fellow, trained in physics and mathematics, working experimentally to, among other tasks, mathematically model the demanding world of oscillometric instrumentation. My task was not merely to observe energetic systems, but to measure them remotely and non-intrusively by detecting extremely weak electromagnetic signals buried inside powerful interference — the specific types of interference that characterise artificially produced plasmas, the fourth and most abundant state of matter in the universe.

In the course of this work, I invented four configurations of related difference-field oscillometers. Three years of effort eventually yielded three peer-reviewed papers published in J Phys E and a PhD thesis that helped advance inductive oscillometry. Yet the chapter of my thesis that I remember most vividly is still the one simply titled "Noise".