Talk:Antony Hewish

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Hewish & Hoyle - worth noting that Hoyle, who was at IoTA, and the MRAO team had had a rather uneasy working relationship in the mid 60s - a carryover from the 2C source-counts controversy, I understand. Thus Hoyle's remarks about the non-inclusion of Jocelyn Bell-Burnell on the Nobel Prize were viewed by some as neither particularly informed (he hadn't had any close involvement in the work, and indeed the pulsar-discovery was a close secret until late on, I understand) nor particularly NPOV (to coin a phrase) :-) Linuxlad 11:41, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From what I've read, people usually take Hoyle's dispute of the Prize seriously. One possible interesting point is that Hoyle himself (according to some) was denied a rightful share of the Prize in the '30s.--Gloriamarie 19:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]


The section on Nobel Prize is misleading and biased, and should be edited objectively by someone more familiar with the details. In the opening part it is correctly stated that the 1974 prize was awarded "(together with fellow radio-astronomer Martin Ryle) for his work on the development of radio aperture synthesis and its role in the discovery of pulsar". The development of radio aperture synthesis represented a substantial corpus of highly-original work over many years by Ryle and Hewish. Their fundamental contributions to the developments of radio astronomy are uncontested, and one can only assume that Ryle and Hewish accepted the prize in good faith on this basis. The Nature paper reporting the pulsar discovery (Nature 1968, vol217, p709) had five authors: Hewish, A.; Bell, S. J.; Pilkington, J. D. H.; Scott, P. F.; Collins, R. A. Amongst these authors, Ryle is NOT present. The paper presents an deep physical interpretation of the signals received, not just reporting their discovery. The Nobel Prize nominations are conducted in confidence, based on peer nominations, and detailed justifications - Hewish could have known nothing of the ongoing deliberations, not could he have possibly influenced the outcome. Others have since debated whether Bell should or should not have been included, but this entry should not be written to portray Hewish as the guilt party. It is incorrect to state "It is now universally recognized that Jocelyn Bell's supervisor and head of department won the Nobel prize for Physics for a discovery which was essentially hers". Jocelyn Bell Burnell went on to have a high profile scientific career and - to her great credit - has never openly criticised the Nobel decision or handled discussions of it with rancour. More will be known when the Nobel nomination archives eventually become public. Finally, as Linuxlad notes, the Hoyle versus Hewish/Ryle "uneasy relation" is relevant. This is described under the entry for Fred Hoyle, and further in Simon Mitton's biography "Fred Hoyle a life in science" Dolerite (talk) 20:47, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and have made some edit's to more reflect the difference between Fred Hoyle's views and the unfairness of the award not recognizing Bell. Seth (talk) 18:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Nobel prize section currently says "Hewish and Martin Ryle were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 for work on the development of radio aperture synthesis and its role in the discovery of pulsars." This is not quite true: the prize was awarded "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars." [1] In fact aperture synthesis played no role in the discovery of pulsars (pulsars are not resolved sources, even today). This should therefore read something like "Hewish and Martin Ryle were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 for work on the development of radio aperture synthesis and for Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars."Averthaiti (talk) 15:59, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Controversy[edit]

On this documentary it is suggested Anthony might not have deserved the nobel prize since the pulsars were discovered by his student (a young woman who claims she was ignored due to being a female). Should there be a mention on that controversy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDW9zKqvPJI 103.6.150.203 (talk) 07:06, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's already in this article, with a link to a more detailed discussion in another article: "The exclusion of Bell from the Nobel prize was controversial (see Nobel prize controversies)". Modest Genius talk 11:35, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Factual error and bad citation[edit]

Hi, I'm new to editing. Apologies for any faux pas in advance. I think there is an error in the article where it says 'Hewish initially thought that the signal might be radio frequency interference, but Bell was able to show that remained at a constant right ascension, which is unlikely for a terrestrial source.' The citation made does not substantiate this claim while Bell Burnell's doctoral thesis says:

"Dr Hewish studied the right ascension of this source and found that, over the four months for which it had been observed, its right ascension had not changed by more than ten seconds (the limit of measurement). Because the interference pattern was not perfectly symmetric, it could be seen that the source passed through the aerial beam in the same sense as any other radio source, and at the same rate. This, plus the constancy of its right ascension demonstrated that is was not interference from something on the earth, (it would not have passed through the beam of the aerial), nor was it interference produced by a satellite, (to keep the same right ascension the satellite would have to be continually accelerated in a very special way)…" JosephRowntree (talk) 15:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for flagging this. I don't think the text is wrong as written, but the referencing was unclear. The cited NPR article quotes Hewish (second hand from Bell) saying "it's manmade, it's artificial radio interference", which substantiates the first part of the sentence. The quote you dug out from Bell's thesis supports the radio source having a constant right ascension (at least within 10 seconds of RA), and her conclusion that that was unlikely for a terrestrial source. I've rearranged the citations to make it clear which reference is supporting each part of the sentence. Modest Genius talk 16:07, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is that really right? The extract from Bell Burnell's thesis says that Hewish was the active agent in the act of demonstrating the constant right ascension - i.e. Dr Hewish 'studied' and 'found that'.
Would it not be accurate to rephrase as 'Hewish initially thought that the signal might be radio frequency interference, but was able to show it remained at a constant right ascension, which is unlikely for a terrestrial source.' JosephRowntree (talk) 13:53, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. I've tweaked so it doesn't attribute that aspect to either of them. Modest Genius talk 14:18, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it be right to attribute this to Hewish though, since Bell Burnell says he did it? Afterall, this is the Wikipedia entry for a person; on such pages we are interested to know what people did, not what was done. 88.111.243.9 (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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