1967

1967

Jocelyn Bell and Antony Hewish discover pulsars, enabling pulse timings from these rotating neutron stars to test theories of modern physics.

Feature Image

A 15 June 1967 photograph of Jocelyn Bell.

Roger Haworth

Curated Resources

Yewande Pearse, “Meet Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the Astrophysicist Who First Noticed Pulsars”, Massive Science, 29 March 2018

“Anthony Hewish”, Nobel Prize

Steve Hurley, “The Discovery of Pulsars 1967: In 1967 Jocelyn Bell, a 24-Year-Old Student From Cambridge University, Was Doing the Research for Her PhD,” Explaining Science, 1 September 2017

Jennifer Ouellette, “Jocelyn Bell Burnell Wins $3 Million Prize for Discovering Pulsars: The Astronomer Was Famously Excluded From the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics,” Ars Technica, 6 September 2018

Anthony Hewish, Jocelyn Bell, John Pilkington, Paul Scott, & Robin Collins, “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source: Unusual Signals From Pulsating Radio Sources Have Been Recorded at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, The Radiation Seems to Come From Local Objects Within the Galaxy, and May Be Associated With Oscillations of White Dwarf or Neutron Stars,” Nature, pages 709-713, 24 February 1968.

John Pilkington, Anthony Hewish, Jocelyn Bell, & Trevor Cole, “Observations of Some Further Pulsed Radio Sources: Details Are Now Given of Three of the Four Pulsating Radio Sources Discovered at Cambridge,” Nature, 13 April 1968

Jocelyn Bell, The Measurement of Radio Source Diameters Using a Diffraction Method, September 1968