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Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s tale is all too familiar: She revolutionized astrophysics with her discovery of pulsars in 1967, but when the Nobel Prize was awarded for this discovery in 1974, the credit went to a man. Decades later, however, Bell Burnell's career received a much-needed recognition. She has been granted the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a well-deserved acknowledgment that many women scientists, whose contributions were once overlooked, never received. As The Guardian reports, her story now finds a positive conclusion.
Pulsars, extremely dense neutron stars that emit powerful bursts of radio waves, went undetected until 1967, when Bell Burnell, working as a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University, first identified one using a radio telescope she had helped build. Intrigued by the peculiar data, she returned to the observatory to see if the repetitive radio signals would appear again. After a month of careful observation, the pulses returned.
She shared her groundbreaking discovery with Antony Hewish, her Ph.D. supervisor. Initially, Hewish dismissed the waves as man-made interference, but eventually, Bell Burnell succeeded in persuading him—and the broader scientific community—that the pulses were emanating from stars. This discovery dramatically altered the field of astrophysics, earning a Nobel Prize in 1974. However, when the prize was announced, Hewish received all the credit, while Bell Burnell was completely ignored.
Despite the early setback, Bell Burnell’s career thrived. She became the first female president of both the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was honored as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and played a key role in founding the Athena SWAN program, a charter dedicated to promoting the careers of women in STEM, whether in academic or research positions.
The Breakthrough Prize, the latest institution to honor her, is the most valuable science prize in existence today. It has previously recognized groundbreaking discoveries in fundamental physics, such as the Higgs boson particle and gravitational waves. Jocelyn Bell Burnell plans to donate her $3 million award to the Institute of Physics, aiming to fund Ph.D. scholarships for underrepresented students in her field.
