An astronomer who infamously missed out on obtain a Nobel Prize for a groundbreaking astrophysics discovery has been announced as the recipient of the $ 3 million Breakthrough Physics pillage .
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was responsible for for discovering the first pulsar , a rapidly rotating neutron star , in 1967 while a graduate student student at the University of Cambridge . The uncovering has beenheraldedas modify our position of the universe .
But while the finding pull in the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics , Dr Burnell missed out . The accolade rather go to her executive program Antony Hewish and the stargazer Martin Ryle . This decision hasnever sat wellwith the uranology community .
Now Dr Burnell is set to receive citation from the yearly Breakthrough Prizes , in its seventh yr and patronise by Facebook ’s Mark Zuckerberg and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner amongst others . The organization declare today she alone would bring home the bacon the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics , and $ 3 million in dirty money money , for her find more than five decade ago . She told the BBC the money would be used as ascholarship fundfor woman and minorities .
“ Professor Bell Burnell exhaustively deserves this recognition , ” Milner say in a program line . “ Her curiosity , persevering observation and rigorous analysis revealed some of the most interesting and occult target in the universe . ”
The prize will be awarded in a star - studded observance in early November in California , alongside others realise Life Sciences , Mathematics , and pocket-size New Horizons in Physics and New Horizons in Mathematics award .
Speaking to IFLScience , Dr Burnell sound out she was “ all speechless ” when tell she would be advance the prize . “ I did n’t expect it , it was nowhere on my radar , ” she said .
But she does n’t bind too many grudges about missing out on the Nobel . Since her discovery she has been given plenty of other prestigious award and honorary academic degree , something she observe may not have take place had she won the top prize in skill .
“ I did extremely well out of not getting the Nobel Prize , ” she suppose . “ Because if you get a bountiful prize like that nobody pass on you anything else , because they feel they ca n’t match it . Whereas if you do n’t get it , you get just about everything else that move . So most years there ’s been a company around some award or other . ”
Dr Burnell , who is presently Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford , and Chancellor of the University of Dundee , said she was “ perfectly puzzled ” by the initial pulsar discovery , with some doubts over whether it was triggered by ground - based interference .
Eventually they were able to confirm its authenticity , and open up an exciting novel area of astronomy . We now know pulsars arerapidly rotating starsthe size of a city , which can spin at hundreds of times per minute , firing out jets of radiation in the process .
She retains the same passion for uranology she had back then , and is especially interested intransient events – a field her find spawned . These are astronomic consequence that can last from arcsecond to years , short enough for us to study and observe on Earth , compare to much longer process like the organic evolution of a Galax urceolata over zillion of years .
“ I ’m very , very interested , in the whole ephemeral field to be honest , ” she tell . “ Fast Radio Bursts[FRBs ] have been enormously exciting , but I ’ve also had a long - terminus interest group in transients . There ’s a plethora of awing stuff that we ’re finding . ”
Dr Burnell ’s story of missing out on a Nobel Prize is one that is still contentious , and highlights thelack of female Nobel Laureates . woman remainsorely underrepresentedeven today ; no woman has won a Nobel Prize since 2015 , with only 49 female recipients in sum compare to 847 men .
This latest Breakthrough Prize is therefore pretty certain to bring a grin to many other astronomers , even if Dr Burnell herself no longer seems too perturbed by the events ten ago .
“ I cerebrate actually I ’ve done rather well in not getting [ the Nobel ] , ” she said . And $ 3 million says she ’s credibly right .
