The Sky is for Everyone
A recurring visitor to the Edinburgh Science Festival since its inception in 1989, on Wednesday 5th April Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was joined by Professor Cathie Clarke of the University of Cambridge at the National Museum of Scotland for an event entitled The Sky is for Everyone, the duo introduced by host Zara Janjua as “two women who broke down barriers and opened doors” in the field of astronomy.
The event associated with the anthology of the same name, comprising autobiographical essays by and profiles of thirty-seven distinguished women working in in the diverse worlds of astronomy, Professor Bell Burnell is widely known as the discover of the then-unidentified astronomical phenomena now recognised as pulsars, while Professor Clarke received the Eddington Medal for “investigations of outstanding merit” in theoretical astophysics.
An undergraduate at the University of Glasgow before moving to Cambridge as a postgraduate, Professor Bell Burnell said the prestigious seat of learning was quite a contrast to Scotland’s second city, particularly in the 1960s, though that has now changed substantially: “Dumbarton Road was a no-go area for women; now it’s yuppie bars.”
Her own transition no less dramatic, at Cambridge she suffered from what is now termed imposter syndrome, but was determined to succeed regardless, explaining she felt “I don’t belong, they’ve made a mistake, they’re going to throw me out, but until then I’ll work my hardest, then I won’t have a guilty conscience.”
Asked to condense the theory of the formation of pulsars for the audience, the name coming from “pulsating radio star,” detected by the regular emissions detected from the rapidly spinning object, Professor Bell Burnell was prepared, having been explaining the complex process for broad audiences for decades: “Stars are born, they live, they die. How they die depends on their weight. Really massive stars die with an explosion: the gas is kicked out, but the core is kicked against and shrinks down, and that is a pulsar.”
The initial discovery of a regular blip every one and a quarter seconds having been extrapolated from miles of paper readouts and met with resistance that “such things can’t exist,” Professor Bell Burnell persisted with her research. “Having one such anomaly, you’re not sure what to believe. I found a second, and a third, and a fourth.” Those additional findings affirmed her conviction: “This is a new class of object.”
Her contribution to the anthology entitled Kites Rise Against the Wind, while now internationally recognised for her contributions and using her position to assist women and minorities access further education, Professor Bell Burnell’s own schooling was a challenge, having to fight to be taught science in a system which believed girls should only be taught domestic science then coming top of her class in physics.
Professor Bell Burnell recalling “I don’t remember the teacher praising me, I remember him berating the boys for being beaten by a girl,” Professor Clarke’s experience was similar, describing “girls in classes under sufferance, teachers refusing to answer questions because their focus was the boys,” but she found solace and peace in nature and the skies of her home county of Cornwall, celebrated in her own essay An Astronomer (Not a Pirate) of Penzance.
Professor Clarke interested in “the origin of things,” her work uses fluid dynamics to model the behaviour of proto-planetary discs, their formation and migration through solar systems, considering herself a theorist whose process was “a very different kind of discovery… You start with the laws of physics and maths and apply them, see if it matches what you see through the telescope,” saying it was “very satisfying but going in the opposite direction” to that of an experimental scientist.
Both speakers hailed for discoveries which enhanced and expanded the understanding of the cosmos, Professor Clarke said that even with the excitement over the recently operational James Webb Space Telescope and the data it will be presenting to the world there were no shortcuts in science. “Certain moments are hailed as a great success, but it’s a continuous process; sometimes it’s fruitful. The press has a biased view; they only congratulate you when it works out.”
The Edinburgh Science Festival will return in 2024
