Science
Related: About this forumShe made the discovery, but a man got the Nobel.
By Sarah Kaplan and
Antonia Noori Farzan
September 8
Jocelyn Bell Burnell built the telescope, laboring in damp and chilly English weather to install more than 100 miles of cable and copper wire across a windswept field near Cambridge. She operated the instruments and analyzed the data, poring over miles of chart paper etched with the inked recordings of galactic radio waves.
And, in 1967, when she spotted the first four light sources with repeated pulses beating a steady rhythm against the background noise of the stars, it was Bell Burnell who realized she'd detected something important. She had discovered the swiftly spinning cores of collapsed stars, whose powerful magnetic fields produce jets of radiation that flash across the sky like the rotating beam of a lighthouse.
The objects, called pulsars, are among the most important astronomical finds of the 20th century potent tools for testing physics, probing space-time and investigating the dark regions of the universe.
On Thursday, half a century after her pioneering work, it was announced that Bell Burnell will receive a $3 million Breakthrough Prize, one of the most lucrative and prestigious awards in science. The special award in fundamental physics, given for her scientific achievements and inspiring leadership, has only been granted three times before.
To Bell Burnell's admirers, the prize is richly deserved and somewhat overdue. In 1974, when a Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of pulsars, Bell Burnell's adviser Antony Hewish was one of the recipients. Bell Burnell was not. No woman has won the Nobel Prize in physics since 1963.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/08/she-made-discovery-man-got-nobel-half-century-later-shes-won-million-prize/?utm_term=.723daa6706e6&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Guilded Lilly
(5,591 posts)With me (as we were want to do!) about women vs men.
He was boasting about how men were the artists, authors, composers, architects, scientists over the course of history and looked at me with one of those superior grins.
Explain that to me!!l
I paused.
Women were not allowed
His face froze as I leveled my own type of look back at him that only a twenty something feminist in the 70s could. Long long pause.
Damn, I never thought about that
Men rarely do
It was an enlightening moment.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)I'm teaching a class on The Ascent of Woman this fall. I'd love to quote this!
Guilded Lilly
(5,591 posts)hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)Canoe52
(2,949 posts)Cicada
(4,533 posts)Fred Hoyle was at his height at Cambridge when so young she made her discovery there, and he was an expert in her field, too. He knew she was robbed and wasnt quiet about it. Many others also stood up for her. So she must have gotten solace from knowing leading figures knew her contribution.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)it and we will never know.
rurallib
(62,444 posts)My understanding was that she actually solved the double helix structure of DNA but Watson and Crick got the credit.
https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html
Wounded Bear
(58,698 posts)was how he focused on many stories like this, where women did the actual work and the men got the credit.
Thanks for the link.