Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a British astrophysicist from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
She was born Susan Jocelyn Bell on 15th July 1943.
Her parents are both educated and encouraged their daughter's early interest in science
with books and trips to a nearby observatory.
However, at first, Jocelyn was denied the opportunity to study science at school
and was instead encouraged to take up subjects like knitting and cooking
Therefore, Jocelyn's parents along with other parents demanded a curriculum change from the school.
One day, Jocelyn's father brought home some books on astronomy from the library which she started to read
After the curriculum change allowed her to study the sciences
Jocelyn knew what she wanted to do with her life
Despite her appetite for learning, however
Bell Burnell had difficulty in grade school
and failed an exam intended to measure her readiness for higher education
Undeterred, her parents sent her to England to study at a boarding school
where she quickly distinguished herself in her science classes.
Having proven her aptitude for higher learning
Bell Burnell attended the University of Glasgow, where she earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1965
And followed that with a PhD in radio astronomy at Cambridge.
As part of her PhD she worked with a team investigating quasars under the astronomers
Anthony Hewish, her thesis advisor, and Martin Ryle.
Over the next two years she helped construct a massive radio telescope designed to monitor quasars.
By 1967 it was operational and Bell Burnell was tasked with analyzing the data it produced
The data came in the form of pen-on-paper chart records, more than 30 metres of them each day. Bell analysed them by eye
After spending endless hours poring over the charts
she noticed some unusual signals that didn't fit with the patterns produced by quasars and called them to team's attention.
When she told the rest of the team, they assumed it was human interference, or she'd wired up the equipment wrong.
In the end, they agreed these signals were coming from outer space
Jocelyn established that the signal was pulsing with great regularity
at a rate of about one pulse every one and a third seconds
She nicknamed the pulses 'LGM', which stood for 'Little Green Men'
but they were later changed to pulsars
However, Jocelyn's discovery was not met with the acclaim she deserved
When the Press found out Jocelyn was a woman, they were bombarded with inquiries
Her male supervisor was asked the astrophysical questions
while she was the human interest
Photographers asked her to unbutton her blouse lower
whilst journalists wanted to know her vital statistics and whether she was taller than Princess Margaret
Even though her name was listed second on the paper which was published about her findings
she was overlooked for the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics, most probably because she was a woman
Many in the scientific community raised their objections, believing that Bell Burnell had been unfairly snubbed.
But Bell Burnell humbly rejected the notion
feeling that the prize had been properly awarded given her status as a graduate student
though she has also acknowledged that gender discrimination may have been a contributing factor
Quoting what Jocelyn actually said in a Belfast Telegraph interview
"I wasn't angry, because it opened up the prize to astrophysicists for the first time."
Now, you might be wondering what are all these quasars and pulsars nonsense we've been going on about.
Why are they even important?
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