Hooray for Jocelyn Bell Burnell – the world needs more scientists like her | Susan Watts

As well as being a brilliant physicist, the winner of the Breakthrough prize is a generous, inspirational role model

It was not a surprise to read that Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell has said she will donate the money she has just won as recipient of the £2.3m Breakthrough prize to help students underrepresented in physics to study the subject she loves.

As a research student in the 1960s, Bell Burnell noticed a mysterious pulsing signal in data from a radio telescope. In time, and after much painstaking observation on her part, this was revealed to be a new type of star: a pulsar. She was the first scientist ever to have detected one – but in the end the Nobel prize recognising the discovery went to her male PhD supervisor.

Continue reading…

Read More Hooray for Jocelyn Bell Burnell – the world needs more scientists like her | Susan Watts

Related Post