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50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

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Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#11

Post by [deleted] »

mjburgess wrote: post #6
deng wrote: post #2

"Later, Bell missed out when Hewish and his colleague Sir Martin Ryle were awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics." See also: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/08/jocelyn-bell...

This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no expectation she should have won the prize. She did not discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them. Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's de…

[deleted]

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#12

Post by lemondrops »

mjburgess wrote: post #6
deng wrote: post #2

"Later, Bell missed out when Hewish and his colleague Sir Martin Ryle were awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics." See also: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/08/jocelyn-bell...

This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no expectation she should have won the prize. She did not discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them. Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's de…

Analyzing data and deriving meaning from it is exactly what we, in science, mean by discovering something.

Though from what I've gathered in recent discussions about Nobel prizes, it is rather common that the project leader is awarded the prize, regardless if his actions directly lead to the "discovery" or not.

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#13

Post by [deleted] »

gmt2027 wrote: post #10
mjburgess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no expectation she should have won the prize. She did not discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them. Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's de…

Except, Hewish did not initially accept Bell's results. He called it interference, claimed it was man made and not worth further attention. There were meetings to which she was not invited and it was a struggle to get him to accept their significance. Edit: Also comparing a Doctoral student who "helped build the telescope" to a cleaner is rather unfair. Francis Crick was a PhD student when they worked out the structu…

[deleted]

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#14

Post by jcims »

In case anyone hasn't heard the periodicity of pulsar signals, here are a few examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0P6x_xDEU

Very difficult to imagine something of n solar masses rotating that quickly, or how long they will continue to rotate at an appreciable percentage of their current speed.

I wish someone would put together an updated version of this with higher quality audio.

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#15

Post by PetitPrince »

pvg wrote: post #7
mac01021 wrote: post #3

Anyone know about taking astronomical photographs? There's one such photo at the top of this article. 1. The night's sky never actually looks like that. Is it simply that the exposure was long so that the brightness of each object is enhanced? How long would the exposure have to be? 2. What is that pinkish nebula-like band/arc that the photo is centered around?

That is a long-exposure shot although the sky does really look like that if it's dark enough - just not quite that colourful. Here's an attempt by a photographer to recreate the effect: https://vimeo.com/113287920 The band in the photo is the milky way.

> although the sky does really look like that if it's dark enough

I agree. Additionally, I assume most people here on HN live on a place that is heavily light-polluted, see https://www.lightpollutionmap.info .

If OP happen to pass by a place with low light pollution, I encourage him/her to stay and watch the sky for a while (30 minutes ?) so that the eyes can adapt to darkness. It's really a neat experience.

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#16

Post by jakeogh »

PetitPrince wrote: post #15
pvg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a long-exposure shot although the sky does really look like that if it's dark enough - just not quite that colourful. Here's an attempt by a photographer to recreate the effect: https://vimeo.com/113287920 The band in the photo is the milky way.

> although the sky does really look like that if it's dark enough I agree. Additionally, I assume most people here on HN live on a place that is heavily light-polluted, see https://www.lightpollutionmap.info . If OP happen to pass by a place with low light pollution, I encourage him/her to stay and watch the sky for a while (30 minutes ?) so that the eyes can adapt to darkness. It's really a neat experience.

Mt. Graham, east of Tucson. Worth it.

http://www.darksky.org/

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#17

Post by melling »

gmt2027 wrote: post #10
mjburgess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no expectation she should have won the prize. She did not discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them. Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's de…

Except, Hewish did not initially accept Bell's results. He called it interference, claimed it was man made and not worth further attention. There were meetings to which she was not invited and it was a struggle to get him to accept their significance. Edit: Also comparing a Doctoral student who "helped build the telescope" to a cleaner is rather unfair. Francis Crick was a PhD student when they worked out the structu…

There was an overlooked woman on that too:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#18

Post by Sharlin »

mac01021 wrote: post #3

Anyone know about taking astronomical photographs? There's one such photo at the top of this article. 1. The night's sky never actually looks like that. Is it simply that the exposure was long so that the brightness of each object is enhanced? How long would the exposure have to be? 2. What is that pinkish nebula-like band/arc that the photo is centered around?

It is a real shame that so many people don't recognize the Milky Way, by having lived their whole lives under light-polluted skies.

But yes, even an optimally dark sky isn't that colorful to a human eye. That's because human low-light vision, provided by rod cells, is almost entirely monochromatic. A camera sensor doesn't have such limitations. You do need an exposure time of several seconds at least, but first and foremost you need to get away from light pollution. No amount of exposure time is going to help you inside a large city; the sky just comes up ugly orange-gray.

To a totally dark-adapted human eye in an optimally dark location the night sky is a sight to behold.

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#19

Post by mjburgess »

jakeogh wrote: post #9
mjburgess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a favourite grievance to mention with Bell, but there was no expectation she should have won the prize. She did not discover pulsars. She was a lab assistant who, as she was writing the numbers down in the lab book, first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them. Being the first to lay eyes on something is not typically what we mean, in science, by discovering it. Or else the guy cleaning the ship's de…

Wrong. Bell was first to make the connection. She discovered them. "first noticed that there were pulsar patterns in them." is way different than "guy cleaning the ship's deck in the morning should be rewarded for discovering America." in the first case, other people might not (and had not) noticed. Equating "holy shit! these are multi-solar-mass nucleons rotating at a significant fraction of lightspeed" to the commo…

Let me refine my comment, "discovery qua social recognition of discovery" does not mean being the first to see something.

We award "discoveries" to those people who own and arrange circumstances that permit "discovery" in the narrow sense.

Which grad student had the logbook was potluck. The existence of the project, the running of the project, etc. had nothing to do with the grad. students it employed.

In the narrow sense then, the Nobel Prize is not about giving the "first human" a gold star. It is about recognizing the drivers of progress in some area. The former is accidental, the latter deliberate. In some situations, esp. in early science, these were the same people (ie. the person who put all the work into creating the project was also the first-recogniser of results).

Since the victorian era, increasingly we have to distinguish between whose ambition a project was, and whose effort saw its realization -- and which individual happen to be the first to press-play on the peak-detection software.

Re: 50 Years Ago Jocelyn Bell Discovered Pulsars

#20

Post by gmt2027 »

melling wrote: post #17
gmt2027 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, Hewish did not initially accept Bell's results. He called it interference, claimed it was man made and not worth further attention. There were meetings to which she was not invited and it was a struggle to get him to accept their significance. Edit: Also comparing a Doctoral student who "helped build the telescope" to a cleaner is rather unfair. Francis Crick was a PhD student when they worked out the structu…

There was an overlooked woman on that too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

The prize was awarded in 1962, 4 years after she died of ovarian cancer. The Nobel is not awarded posthumously.
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