Jocelyn Bell

 This poem pays a tribute to Jocelyn Bell who with the aid of her phased array antenna the she built and maintained  (Radio telescope) discovered Pulsars  At first she noticed a small amount of persistent noise in her plots which she jokingly referred to as LGM (little Green men). The pulses were regularly and quite rapid. For a while there was speculation that they may indeed be signals from outer space and of course the media latched on to it. However it was soon realised that they could in fact be neutron stars and this was later confirmed. A neutron star is a much more compact object than a white dwarf and represents another stable state of stellat collapse. Oppenheimer and his student Volkoff had worked out that one of the implications of General relativity was indeed this new stable state. One of the signals of a neutron star is the fact that it rotates rapidly (due to conservation of angular momentum) hence the short bursts that Jocelyn Bell measured. In one of the great scandals despite having done all the work it was her supervisor that got the credit and the subsequent Nobel prize. This is typical of the sexism that prevailed in those days and probably still lingers on today. Jocelyn Bell continued to develop her career as an Astrophysicist and was for a time Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics for the Open University. As I am an antenna engineer it would be interesting if I can find out the details of Jocelyn Bell's antenna and plot some typical radiation patterns watch this space

Anyway her is my tribute to her 

Jocelyn Bell

 

What was that strange pulse from the stars,

Could it be little men from Mars.

No it was a star so dense,

Made of neutrons with mass immense.

 

Spinning round so fast,

Emitting pulses in a blast.

This marvel you found,

With your antenna on the ground.