British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell is known for her discovery of the first pulsar, a type of star that illuminates us at regular intervals. However, it was his thesis supervisor who won the Nobel Prize, which sparked great controversy within the scientific community. After this episode, however, Jocelyn Bell was repeatedly honored and rewarded for her work and her entire career.
Childhood and studies
Born in 1943 in Belfast (Northern Ireland), Susan Jocelyn Bell is the eldest of four children. His father, George Philip Bell, is an architect who notably helped in the design of the planetarium in Armagh, still in Northern Ireland. Coming from a wealthy family, Jocelyn Bell very early on in astronomy and often accompanies his father to visit the planetarium. Young Jocelyn completed her primary at Lurgan College (1948-1956) and tried exam 11+ without success. It should be remembered that this examination concerns part of the pupils of the United Kingdom and makes it possible to determine their accessibility to secondary schools practicing academic selection.
Her parents then sent her to Mount School in York (England), in a girls’ boarding school of the Religious Society of Friends (1956-1961). According to Jocelyn Bell, one of the teachers at this school will have a lot to do with it. his love of physics. The teenager then left for the University of Glasgow (Scotland) where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in 1965. Four later, she obtained a doctorate (Ph. D.) at the famous University of Cambridge. Its thesis supervisor is none other than Antony Hewish, a renowned British astronomer.
The discovery of the first pulsar
In 1967, the young astronomer Jocelyn Bell discovered the very first pulsar by examining the recordings of a radio telescope which was originally intended for interstellar scintillation detection. At the time, it recorded signals appearing regularly every 1.33730 seconds. She notices that it is a strange signal, different from the radio astronomical signals known so far. In reality, she is dealing with a pulsar, therefore named PSR B1919 + 21. Today, the latter is located in the constellation Little Fox, about 2000 light years from Earth.
But what is a pulsar? Part of the neutron star family, the pulsar is a special astronomical object. Indeed, it does not shine continuously as is the case for a classic planet or star. The pulsar sends very short pulses radiation in space. In addition, this object sends its light regularly between two pulses, following an interval that can range from a few milliseconds to several seconds. Progress has made it possible to know that in reality the star shines continuously. On the other hand, its radiations are emitted by two opposite points and while turning, the object us illuminates at regular intervals.
Since the discovery of pulsars, many researchers have been working on this subject. Moreover, to this day, there are about two miles. NASA has also organized several missions to study them, including NICER in 2017. An instrument aimed at studying X-radiation from pulsars was sent to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo ship. According to the project leaders, the instrument should make it possible to understand the nature of the densest stable form located in the nuclei of neutron stars.
Controversy around the Nobel Prize
Jocelyn Bell therefore highlighted the first pulsar, a major discovery in astronomy. And yet, she was not immediately recognized since Antony Hewish, her thesis supervisor, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974. He will also share the prize with radio astronomer Martin Ryle “For their pioneering research in radio astrophysics”. According to the decision-makers, Antony Hewish is rewarded for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars and Martin Ryle, for his observations and his inventions, in particular for the opening synthesis.
Quickly, a important controversy erupts after cosmologist Fred Hoyle, a main critic of the Big Bang theory, is outraged. According to him, it is inconceivable that the Nobel Prize be awarded to the thesis supervisor and not to the principal interested simply because she is his student and / or that she is a woman. However, it should still be remembered that Jocelyn Bell believed in 1979 that there was nothing abnormal there.
Crédits : Silicon Republic / Wikipedia
A recognized scientist
The rest of his post-doctoral career was punctuated by successive hires at the University of Southampton, University College London and the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. It will then become ten years professor of physics at Open University, a public distance learning university, before becoming an occasional professor at the prestigious universities of Princeton (United States) and Oxford. Jocelyn Bell will also be president of the Royal Astronomical Society (2002-2004), then of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2014-2018). Despite the lack of a Nobel Prize, the astrophysicist was awarded ten times. She received the Albert A. Michelson Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1973, the Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize from the American Astronomical Union in 1986 and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 2015.
Jocelyn Bell will also receive the Fundamental Physics Prize of the foundation of Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. The award of three million dollars was bequeathed to the Institute of Physics at the University of Oxford for create a scholarship in his name and thus help under-represented categories of students in physics. On this occasion, she will explain that the history of the pulsar happened in part because she was a student and especially from a minority (women). According to the astrophysicist, aIncreasing diversity in physics can therefore only bring good things.
Finally, Jocelyn Bell received a dozen doctorates honoris causa (honorary) for his work and his entire career. The most prestigious establishment to do him this honor is undoubtedly Harvard University in 2007. In 2010, the BBC Four channel also broadcast the first part of his documentary series Beautiful Minds, whose subject was Jocelyn Bell. This production thus allowed to expose in detail the career and the contributions to astronomy of the scientist.
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