Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Date of Birth, Place of Birth

    

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

British astronomer

Date of Birth: 15-Jul-1943

Place of Birth: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Profession: astronomer, physicist, astrophysicist

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About Jocelyn Bell Burnell

  • Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, co-discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967.
  • She was credited with "one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century".
  • The discovery was recognised by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, but despite the fact that she was the first to observe the pulsars, Bell was not one of the recipients of the prize.The paper announcing the discovery of pulsars had five authors.
  • Bell's thesis supervisor Antony Hewish was listed first, Bell second.
  • Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with the astronomer Martin Ryle.
  • Many prominent astronomers criticised Bell's omission, including Sir Fred Hoyle.
  • In 1977, Bell Burnell played down this controversy, saying, "I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in its press release announcing the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, cited Ryle and Hewish for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics, with particular mention of Ryle's work on aperture-synthesis technique, and Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars. Bell Burnell served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, as president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and as interim president of the Institute following the death of her successor, Marshall Stoneham, in early 2011. In 2018, she was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
  • Following the announcement of the award, she decided to give the whole of the £2.3 million prize money to help female, minority, and refugee students seeking to become physics researchers, the funds to be administered by the Institute of Physics.
  • The resulting bursary scheme is to be known as the "Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund".

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