
50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars - Hooke
https://www.space.com/38912-pulsar-discovery-by-jocelyn-bell.html
======
deng
"Later, Bell missed out when Hewish and his colleague Sir Martin Ryle were
awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics."

See also:

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/08/jocelyn-
bell...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/08/jocelyn-bell-
burnell-100-women)

~~~
mjburgess
This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no
expectation she should have won the prize.

She did _not_ discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was
writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar
patterns in them.

Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in
science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's deck in the
morning should be rewarded for discovering America.

The prize was awarded to the head of the team as it was a project of his
design and his organization. To have split 1/3 of the prize with whatever grad
student happened to be keeping the books seems ridiculous.

~~~
gmt2027
Except, Hewish did not initially accept Bell's results. He called it
interference, claimed it was man made and not worth further attention. There
were meetings to which she was not invited and it was a struggle to get him to
accept their significance.

Edit: Also comparing a Doctoral student who "helped build the telescope" to a
cleaner is rather unfair. Francis Crick was a PhD student when they worked out
the structure of DNA.

~~~
melling
There was an overlooked woman on that too:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin)

~~~
gmt2027
The prize was awarded in 1962, 4 years after she died of ovarian cancer. The
Nobel is not awarded posthumously.

~~~
melling
Yes, I know that it’s not awarded posthumously.

My understanding is that she was not given credit in her lifetime so she would
not have been awarded it anyway. Unless, someone had explained her
contribution in those 4 years.

“Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, her
contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely recognised
posthumously.”

~~~
Angostura
There's actually an apology from - Watson, I think - as an addendum in my old
copy of The Double Helix bought in the 1980s.

------
jcims
In case anyone hasn't heard the periodicity of pulsar signals, here are a few
examples:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0P6x_xDEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0P6x_xDEU)

Very difficult to imagine something of n solar masses rotating that quickly,
or how long they will continue to rotate at an appreciable percentage of their
current speed.

I wish someone would put together an updated version of this with higher
quality audio.

~~~
wglb
Joe Taylor played a tape just like this one at the dinner I attended.

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RedOrGreen
I'm too close to this topic for a chatty comment, but I'll just point to this
IAU meeting: "Pulsar Astrophysics: The Next 50 years"[1]. It was held this
September at Jodrell Bank, which has always had deep involvement with pulsar
astronomy. Jocelyn Bell delivered the opening talk, and she got a sustained
standing ovation. It was just a wonderful moment.

(And yeah, she wasn't a mere grad student - after her initial discovery and
after it was dismissed by everyone around her, to borrow a phrase, she
persisted.)

[1] [http://pulsarastronomy.net/iaus337/](http://pulsarastronomy.net/iaus337/)

~~~
jcims
Not the same talk, but she's a treat to listen to -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42cvUqmEg2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42cvUqmEg2c)

------
jakeogh
As if these things could be more interesting, some exhibit 'glitches' which
appear to be quantization of angular momentum on an N solar-mass scale.

[http://www.unn.edu.ng/publications/files/images/EYA,%20INNOC...](http://www.unn.edu.ng/publications/files/images/EYA,%20INNOCENT%20OKWUDILI.pdf)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOkjLtCCozM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOkjLtCCozM)

About as far as away as one can imagine, a similar thing appears to happen
with very low accelerations with some of our satellites. My search-fo failed
on that so far.

Bonus scale crazyness for all the battery 2.0 articles:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4JrbpBvWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4JrbpBvWc)

~~~
jakeogh
found it. "fly-by anomaly". Unknown if it's related to glitches.
[https://www.universetoday.com/137984/juno-isnt-exactly-
suppo...](https://www.universetoday.com/137984/juno-isnt-exactly-supposed-
flyby-anomaly-back-happen/)

------
gadders
Interview with her on the BBC Radio 4 show "The Life Scientific" here:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016812j](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016812j)

~~~
Angostura
A consistently fascinating series.

------
timecc
She is giving a lecture in Cambridge (England) this evening.
[http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/94549](http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/94549)

------
lunchladydoris
If anyone is interested in checking out a fun radio astronomy/data analysis
course that touches on pulsars and other phenomena, I can highly recommend the
University of Sydney's Coursera course Data Driven Astronomy [0].

[0] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/data-driven-
astronomy](https://www.coursera.org/learn/data-driven-astronomy)

------
mac01021
Anyone know about taking astronomical photographs? There's one such photo at
the top of this article.

1\. The night's sky never actually looks like that. Is it simply that the
exposure was long so that the brightness of each object is enhanced? How long
would the exposure have to be?

2\. What is that pinkish nebula-like band/arc that the photo is centered
around?

~~~
pvg
That is a long-exposure shot although the sky does really look like that if
it's dark enough - just not quite that colourful. Here's an attempt by a
photographer to recreate the effect:

[https://vimeo.com/113287920](https://vimeo.com/113287920)

The band in the photo is the milky way.

~~~
PetitPrince
> although the sky does really look like that if it's dark enough

I agree. Additionally, I assume most people here on HN live on a place that is
heavily light-polluted, see
[https://www.lightpollutionmap.info](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info) .

If OP happen to pass by a place with low light pollution, I encourage him/her
to stay and watch the sky for a while (30 minutes ?) so that the eyes can
adapt to darkness. It's really a neat experience.

~~~
jakeogh
Mt. Graham, east of Tucson. _Worth it_.

[http://www.darksky.org/](http://www.darksky.org/)

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jcims
Excellent article on the challenges of amateur detection of pulsars:
[http://neutronstar.joataman.net/technical/amateur_challenges...](http://neutronstar.joataman.net/technical/amateur_challenges.html)

It's possible, but you have to have your shit together.

------
bipr0
And was screwed.

