Astrophysicist makes star turn
SHE has forever changed our understanding of the cosmos, and now the acclaimed British astrophysicist hopes to change the lives of young Tasmanians.
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the first pulsars 52 years ago, is dedicating significant time and money to help students underrepresented in physics.
The visiting Oxford University professor, who grew up in Northern Ireland, will give a free public lecture at the University of Tasmania today to impart her passion for science — despite obstacles that can face women and people from minority groups.
Last year she was chosen by a panel of the world’s leading scientists to receive the $4.3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, all of which she has donated to fund women, people from ethnic minority groups and refugees to become physics researchers.
The graduate of the University of Glasgow said when she first started in physics in the early 1960s she was the only female in a class of 50: “And I got teased — on the verge of bullying — by my male colleagues,” she said. “It was ‘the tradition’ of the university at that time that when women entered a lecture hall, the men stamped their feet, banged their desks, whistled, cat-called and made as much noise as they could.”
Looking back, she said the experience made her more determined and more independent.
Her landmark pulsar discovery came in 1967, while she was working with Cambridge astronomer Antony Hewish. She noticed an unusual set of data — which proved to be the first known pulsars, which are rotating neutron stars.
The discovery, considered one of the greatest of the 20th century, landed a Nobel prize for her PhD supervisor, but Prof Bell Burnell was overlooked.
UTAS pulsar researcher Jim Palfreyman, who invited Prof Bell Burnell to Tasmania, said it was an honour to host her. Prof Bell Burnell spent yesterday touring the university’s Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory.
The free public lecture will be held at the Sandy Bay campus’s Physics Lecture Theatre 1, from 5pm.