Stardom and honours first eluded astronomy student

She discovered pulsating stars but Nobel Prize went to her professor

VICKY KASPI
Freelance

Monday, July 23, 2007

In the summer of 1967, while much of the world's attention was focused on Expo '67 in Montreal, a young Ph.D student named Jocelyn Bell was quietly amassing telescope data on reams of paper in a remote field near Cambridge University. Little did she know these data would ultimately lead to a transformation in our view of the universe, and two Nobel Prizes.

Usually, stars in the sky just shine, apart from the twinkling caused by our own Earth's atmosphere. But Bell's data, to her amazement, suggested some stars turn on and off, on and off, several times per second, with a regularity that puts the best Rolex to shame.

At first, even her own Ph.D supervisor, Cambridge professor Antony Hewish, thought this too crazy to believe. It must be man-made - something terrestrial, he argued, when Bell showed him the astonishing signals.

But Bell persisted, eventually demonstrating that the "beeps" had to be emanating from well beyond Earth.

Once convinced, Hewish shrouded the discovery in secrecy. A pulsing signal from outer space? This had the hallmark of a communication from an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization, something truly mind-blowing. Indeed, the first name the group gave to these celestial signals, in internal discussions and memoranda, was "LGM 1," for "Little Green Men 1."

It was not long before continued telescope observations discovered several "LGM" sources around the sky, and it became clear that it was a purely natural phenomenon. Bell had discovered a completely new type of star.

The group aptly named them "pulsars," short for pulsating stars.

The discovery was a press sensation, Expo notwithstanding. Worldwide media descended on Cambridge. Reporters saved the meaty technical questions for Hewish. Meanwhile, Bell was asked questions like whether she had a boyfriend.

In 1974, Anthony Hewish alone was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of pulsars. This was too much for some astronomers.

While no one doubts that Hewish deserved the honour, given his vision in constructing the first-ever telescope capable of detecting stellar pulsations, the omission of Bell, who had done the actual detecting was shocking to some.

In a now-famous 1975 press conference at McGill University, the celebrated British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, famous as a popularizer of science and for his groundbreaking work on the inner workings of stars, publicly stated that "the girl (Jocelyn) had been pinched" of a share of the Nobel, arguing that it was a "scientific scandal of major proportions."

Others agreed. In a 1975 Time magazine article, Cornell University astronomer Tommy Gold said that "she deserves a major share of the honour." Bell herself, on the other hand, countered that "Nobel Prizes are based on longstanding research, not on a flash-in-the-pan observation of a research student. The award to me would have debased the prize."

Nobel or not, the discovery of pulsars today is today unequivocally attributed in the pulsar community to both Hewish and his research student. Today, Jocelyn Bell, or rather Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, is among the most respected scientists in Britain. A fellow of the Royal Society and recipient of many top physics and astronomy prizes, including an honourary doctorate from Harvard University this past year, she was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II this June. Last summer, she led the proceedings at the International Astronomical Union in Prague in which the historic decision was made to "demote" Pluto from the status of planet.

Bell Burnell has clearly come a long way since her days in the fields near Cambridge.

In 1993, a second Nobel Prize was awarded for pulsar research, this time for the use of the clock-like properties of a pulsar in orbit with a second star to test Einstein's celebrated theory of general relativity. (It passed!) The awardees were Professor Joseph Taylor as well as his former Ph.D student, Russell Hulse, who had made the initial discovery of the first "binary pulsar."

Perhaps the Nobel committee was persuaded by Hoyle and others that student discoveries do merit recognition after all.

Vicky Kaspi is McGill University's Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology and a Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics. In 2005, Kaspi's pulsar research team discovered the fastest-spinning pulsar known to science. Graduate student Jason Hessels made the actual discovery.

The McGill physics department will host a conference celebrating the 40th anniversary of the discovery of pulsars on Aug. 12-17. On Aug. 14, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell will give a public lecture about her now-famous discovery of pulsars. In the audience will be her former mentor, Sir Antony Hewish, Nobel Laureate, now 87.