It was not a surprise to read that Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell has said she will donate the money she has just won as recipient of the £2.3m Breakthrough prize to help students underrepresented in physics to study the subject she loves. As a research student in the 1960s, Bell Burnell noticed a mysterious pulsing signal in data from a radio telescope. In time, and after much painstaking observation on her part, this was revealed to be a new type of star: a pulsar. She was the first scientist ever to have detected one – but in the end the Nobel prize recognising the discovery went to her male PhD supervisor. Bell Burnell is one of those rare scientists who go out of their way to help an inquiring mind. As a science journalist, I found her always prepared to answer a question or two on the latest discovery in astrophysics, or on the seemingly endless struggle to encourage more girls and women to enter the field and stay. In this latest move, she gives others the opportunity to make their mark in the way that she did. And as she puts it: “Increasing the diversity of physics could lead to all sorts of good things”. My own journey out of physics and into journalism was pretty rapid. In the early 1980s, while at Imperial College, I was one of eight students lucky enough to spend the summer of our second year at the Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux, in Sussex. My project on optics and telescopes taught me a lot about the laborious nature of much of science, and that results don’t necessarily come fast. But something important was missing. I believe now that if I had had a female mentor, my flight from the field might have been less swift. But in Bell Burnell I found a role model whom I could at least aspire to. At that point, I suspect I would have been overawed if I had actually met her, but when I did in later life she was typically generous with her time. And the next generation has been struck by her generous spirit too. My daughter, when fascinated by science as a teenager, had no qualms about rushing up to Bell Burnell to ask a question after a public lecture. She had already helped to break down barriers for women so they felt confident in approaching her, and more confident too in grasping the subject. I hope she enjoys the ceremony in California this autumn to mark this latest award for her landmark discovery of pulsars and her lifetime of inspiring leadership in the scientific community. It’s about time we recognised that the best scientists are not necessarily those handed a Nobel prize, but those who give something tangible back to their subjects. Bell Burnell has been a role model for countless women physicists, and, I suspect, a fair few men.<doc-sep>A British astrophysicist has donated the entirety of her £2.3m prize from one of the world's most prestigious science awards to promote diversity among researchers. Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell announced the money will be used to fund scholarships to help women, refugees and people from ethnic minority groups into the sciences. The professor was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics on Thursday for the role she played in the discovery of pulsars during the mid-1960s. Two of her male colleagues, Anthony Hewish and Sir Martin Ryle, were handed the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics for the research, but Prof Bell Burnell was controversially overlooked as a co-recipient. “I don't want or need the money myself and it seemed to me that this was perhaps the best use I could put to it,” she told BBC News. Prof Bell Burnell was a young research student at Cambridge University when she became the first scientist to observe radiation omitted from pulsars, small stars with huge masses that rotate at tremendous speeds. The precise and consistent timing at which pulsars spin makes them extremely reliable natural clocks for astrophysicists, who have since used them to help map the visible universe. The Belfast-born, York-educated scientist has in the past been diplomatic about her omission from the 1974 Nobel Prize, conceding at the time it was seen as a prize awarded only to senior male scientists. However, she hopes her donation will pave the way for more ground-breaking discoveries by scientists from diverse backgrounds in the future. “I found pulsars because I was a minority person and feeling a bit overawed at Cambridge,” she added. 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The celebration marks the end of the Muslim month of fasting, called Ramadan. 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And so if they come with some funding with them then they look much more attractive".<doc-sep>
Irish astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been awarded a prestigious Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, for discovering pulsars all the way back in 1967. A Cambridge PhD student at the time, Bell Burnell spotted a faint, repeating signal in the reams and reams of data she had to sift through at the newly opened Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. She was able to characterise the signal as repeating flashes of light from a rapidly spinning star. Pulsars, as these stars came to be known, are a type of neutron star that changed astronomy. Their pulses are so regular, they can be used as a sort of cosmic clock - and perhaps even a galactic positioning system. They also helped understand the structure of our galaxy, and help test relativity; in short, they're hugely important objects. And Bell Burnell attributes the discovery to her minority status - an Irish woman trying to gain a foothold in astrophysics in the 1960s. "It was a very, very small signal. It occupied about one part in 100,000 of the three miles of chart data that I had," she told The Guardian. "I noticed it because I was being really careful, really thorough, because of impostor syndrome." In 1974, a Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery - to Bell Burnell's supervisor Antony Hewish and colleague Martin Ryle. Bell Burnell was not included. Since then, she has been honoured with a number of awards. The Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which comes with US$3 million in prize money, has only ever been awarded to three other recipients: Professor Stephen Hawking, the Higgs boson discovery team, and the LIGO collaboration that led to the discovery of gravitational waves. Bell Burnell already has plans for the money, to be awarded at the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony on November 4. She intends to donate it to the Institute of Physics to fund PhD studentships for minority applicants. "I found pulsars because I was a minority person and feeling a bit overawed at Cambridge. I was both female but also from the north-west of the country and I think everybody else around me was southern English," she told the BBC. "So I have this hunch that minority folk bring a fresh angle on things and that is often a very productive thing. In general, a lot of breakthroughs come from left field."