Jocelyn Bell Burnell visits NPL
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the President of the Institute of Physics and a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, visited NPL on 24 September and gave a presentation to NPL's staff entitled 'In pursuit of pulsars'.
Jocelyn is a renowned astrophysicist who discovered pulsars (a type of star) in the 1960s with her then supervisor Antony Hewish. Hewish was later awarded a Nobel Prize for the discovery.
Pulsars or neutron stars are some of the most bizarre stars in the galaxy, introducing us to amazing physics. Their time-keeping properties mean they can be used as clocks to test Einstein's theories, and in the future they may be used like lighthouses in the sky as navigation beacons. The presentation provided an accessible, and inspiring, introduction to these stars.
Jocelyn kindly allowed her presentation to be filmed - you can download it here (206 MB MP4 file).