Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s Pulsar Discovery – Trinity College Dublin Physics Communication

While reviewing pages of data in late 1967 at Cambridge, Jocelyn Bell Burnell noticed a series of periodic blips unlike any known astronomical source, signals she initially nicknamed “LGM” for “little green men.” After ruling out equipment glitches, she and her supervisor identified the signals as a pulsar (a rapidly spinning neutron star), a discovery that would eventually be honoured with a Nobel Prize.

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2022/09/22/children-in-science-jocelyn-bell-burnell-discovered-pulsars

Early Life

Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born in Armagh and from an early age she showed a deep curiosity in how the world worked. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s, girls were expected to study topics such as home economics and sewing. However, after strong opposition by her parents, Jocelyn was permitted to study science at school.

After graduating with Honours from the University of Glasgow with a Bachelor of Science, she continued on as a PhD student in Cambridge.

Work as a Graduate Student

At Cambridge she worked as one of several research students under astronomer Antony Hewish. In 1967 they built a large radio telescope designed to observe quasars (extremely luminous galactic cores where gas and dust falling into a supermassive black hole emit electromagnetic radiation)

Long before the computational analysis tools required for this work existed, Jocelyn poured over hundreds of feet of printouts of the data to monitor these quasars. While doing this, she discovered regularly pulsating “blips” at a very high frequency. When inquiring with her supervisor, Hewish initially worried that Jocelyn had set up the equipment wrong but after closer examination and a reading from a second telescope, they knew for certain that the signal was not just interference, she had discovered rapidly spinning neutron stars, which were later coined pulsars by the media.

Nobel Prize Controversy

In 1974, the Nobel Prize for Physics was controversially awarded to Hewish and astronomer Martin Ryle for the discovery of pulsars. While several scientists strongly protested Bell Burnell’s lack of recognition, she later commented that she wasn’t bitter about this as only in exceptional circumstances were graduate students awarded a Nobel and later commented that was genuinely happy that astronomy had been awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics for the first time, hoping that this would lead to more Nobel’s in the field of astronomy in the future.

Recognition

Despite her pivotal role, Bell Burnell responded to the Nobel omission with humility, emphasizing that scientific progress relies on teamwork. At the same time, she expressed disgust at the sexist undertones in media coverage that downplayed her contribution. At the time she did not publicly react to this behaviour, but in interviews since she has recounted the incredibly sexist questions she would be asked by the media such as how many boyfriends she had if she would undo some buttons for the photographs.

Advocacy for Women in Science

These biases that Bell Burnell faced, only spurred her on to become an inspiring advocate for women in science, particularly physics. In 2018, Jocelyn won the prestigious Breakthrough Prize for physics for her role in the discovery of pulsars. She chose to donate the 2.3 million pound award to the Institute of Physics to set up the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund to encourage diversity in physics by supporting students from groups currently under-represented who wish to study towards a doctorate.

Despite not achieving the Nobel, she has received numerous honours including being made a Dame in 2007 and has held prominent leadership positions in the field, serving as president of the Institute of Physics from 2008 to 2010.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an inspiring example to young people in physics, not only is her academic work incredibly admirable, but her generosity and humility sets the standard for what a scientist should be.

References

American Physical Society. (2024, February). Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Whose 1967 Discovery of Pulsars Landed Her Supervisor a Nobel, Tells Young Physicists, “Don’t Second‑Guess Yourself” (Liz Boatman, Interview). APS News. https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2024/02/jocelyn-bell-burnell-discovery-pulsars Accessed May 2025.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. Neutron star. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/neutron-star Accessed May 2025.

Biography.com Editors. (2021, March 29). Jocelyn Bell Burnell Biography. Biography.com. https://www.biography.com/scientists/jocelyn-bell-burnell Accessed May 2025.

ESA/Hubble. Quasar. ESA/Hubble Wordbank. https://esahubble.org/wordbank/quasar/ Accessed May 2025.