Jocelyn Bell Burnell Quotes

Ireland, Astrophysicist
July 15, 1943

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS FInstP (/bɜːrˈnɛl/; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, co-discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. She was credited with "one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century". The discovery was recognised by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, but despite the fact that she was the first to observe the pulsars, Bell was excluded from the recipients of the prize.

Some of the hydrogen in your body comes from the Big Bang, and when you see a kid walking down the street with a helium balloon, you can say, 'There goes some of the primordial universe.'

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Universe
- Walking
The universe is very big - there's about 100,000 million galaxies in the universe, so that means an awful lot of stars. And some of them, I'm pretty certain, will have planets where there was life, is life, or maybe will be life. I don't believe we're alone.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Life
- Believe
- Pretty

We still don't know what about 96 per cent of the universe is made of. It is dark matter and dark energy, but we have no idea what it is.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Energy
- Universe
- Dark
If we assume we've arrived: we stop searching, we stop developing.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Stop
Radio astronomers are aware in the back of their minds that if there are other civilizations out there in space, it might be the radio astronomers who first pick up the signal.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Up
- Space
Looking at the universe as a whole; cosmology, the birth, life and death of the whole universe, we used to have a nice simple model. Then we had to add things like dark energy, and our nice simple picture is getting messier and messier and messier.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Life
- Death
- Energy
I positively encourage time abroad to anybody. It's worth taking the time to suss out which countries in the world are well funded for your subject and look for opportunities there.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Time
- World
Throughout my working life, I've been either one of very few women or the most senior woman in the place.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Life
- Women
- Senior

Scientists should never claim that something is absolutely true. You should never claim perfect, or total, or 100% because you never ever get there.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- True
- Perfect
By the end of my PhD I could swing a sledgehammer.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
I became conscious in later life that I had been given an education that enabled me to do all kinds of jobs, but often, jobs weren't open to me.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
- Life
- Education
I didn't always have research jobs.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell