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The accomplished astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell won a special $ 3 million prize for her discovery of pulsars 50 years ago and continued scientific leadership.
Bell Burnell has lived an accomplished life. Although best known for her discovery, she has become a leader in the field, holding many senior positions in well-known scientific organizations. She will use the prize money to create a fund for students from underrepresented backgrounds.
"Diversity is very important," Bell Burnell told Nature. "It also recognizes that I have done my most important job as a student."
Bell Burnell was a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. She examined the observations of the interplanetary scintillation system at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory when she noticed a strange radio signal. She calculated that it varied steadily with a period of 1.34 seconds. Although it's beforelittle green men,Since then, scientists have determined that Bell Burnell has discovered the pulsar, a fast-moving neutron star emitting a beam of radiation like a lighthouse.
The discovery of the pulsar won the Nobel Prize in 1974, not for Bell Burnell, but for his advisor Antony Hewish, who designed the discovery tool and whose name first appeared on the paper, as well as Martin Ryle, founding director of the observatory. . Scientists have widely considered the omission of a snub. Bell Burnell has since stated that she did not think that the award should be awarded to graduate students, except in exceptional cases, and Bell Burnell did not believe that it was the only one that was awarded. one of them.
Today, his discovery is widely regarded as one of the most important and exceptional in the history of astronomy. Pulsars are now vital astronomical tools for measuring time, determining distances to map the universe and measuring gravity. They were used to indirectly discover gravitational waves in 1974. We write about them all the time.
The special Breakthrough Award mentions not only his discovery of pulsar, but also his life as a leader. Bell Burnell has been president of the Royal Astronomical Society, president of the Institute of Physics, and first female president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the National Academy of Sciences of Scotland.
The Breakthrough Award, which co-founders Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and billionaire Yuri Milner, is a $ 3 million award given each December to life scientists, physics and mathematics. However, the selection committee may award a special prize whenever it wishes. These special awards are not to be awarded for recent discoveries, as in the case of Bell Burnell.
Physicists around the world believe that the award is well deserved. Flatiron Institute physicist Chiara Mingarelli tweeted "she deserves every penny" and Columbia astronomer David Kipping said pulsars were "truly one of the most amazing discoveries in astronomy".
"His discovery as a young graduate student in Cambridge has opened new fields to astronomy, an intellectual contribution and a success that all scientists dream of," said Gizmodo Priya Natarajan, a Yale physicist. "It is too late to recognize this essential contribution. [I’m] pleased that the Breakthrough Award Committee in its wisdom has chosen to recognize it. "
Bell Burnell told the BBC that she did not need the cash prize and hoped that the scholarship fund would defeat "unconscious bias" in physics research. People of color are largely underrepresented in the community of physicists. Women make up one-fifth of undergraduate physics students and hold less than 5% of faculty positions.
So, congratulations to Jocelyn Bell Burnell, she deserves it.
This article has been updated with a quote from Priya Natarajan.
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