Antony Hewish

The remains of the MRAO's Interplanetary Scintillation Array, which was used to discover the first pulsar in 1967

Antony Hewish (born May 11, 1924 in Fowey , Cornwall , † September 13, 2021 ) was a British radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics .

Life

Antony Hewish was born in Fowey, Cornwall, the youngest of three brothers and grew up in Newquay . After attending King's College in Taunton , he began his studies at Cambridge University in 1942 . From 1943 to 1946 he did military service in research institutions, the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough and the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Malvern , in radar research . He returned to Cambridge in 1946 and graduated in 1948. He then moved to the Cavendish Laboratory to Martin Rylewith whom he had already worked during his military service. After receiving his doctorate in 1952, he moved first to Gonville and Caius College and in 1961 as head of physics at Churchill College . He was appointed professor of radio astronomy in 1971 and retired in 1989. After a serious illness from Martin Ryle, he took over the leadership of the radio astronomy group in Cambridge in 1977 and was head of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) in Lord's Bridge ( Cambridgeshire ) from 1982 to 1988 , a railway station closed at the end of 1967 between Oxford and Cambridge and a few km west of Cambridge. Hewish married Marjorie Elizabeth Catherine Richards in 1950. The marriage resulted in a son, a physicist, and a daughter, a language teacher. Antony Hewish died on September 13, 2021 at the age of 97.

plant

Hewish began his work in the field of radio astronomy at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and made both practical and theoretical advances in the observation and evaluation of the scintillation of radio sources due to the interaction of their radiation with the ionosphere . After the discovery of interplanetary scintillation by the solar wind in 1964, he raised funds to finance several telescopes in Cambridge to improve the ability to observe radio galaxies . After construction began in 1965, the telescopes, which are interconnected to form a large array, were completed in 1967. During this project, one of his PhD students , Jocelyn Bell , noticed the first pulsar PSR B1919 + 21 .

He and Martin Ryle were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 for their role in the discovery of pulsars . As a result, the Nobel Committee was heavily criticized, especially by Fred Hoyle , because Jocelyn Bell , who was the actual discoverer and is named second after Hewish in the original publication of the discovery, received nothing.

Awards

• Hamilton Prize, Cambridge, 1952
• Eddington Medal , Royal Astronomical Society , 1969
• Karl Schwarzschild Medal , Astronomical Society , 1971
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1971
• Dellinger Medal, International Union of Radio Science , 1972
• Michelson Medal, Franklin Institute, 1973
• Hopkins Prize, Cambridge Philosophical Society , 1973
• Holwechsel medal and prize, Société française de physique , 1974
• Nobel Prize in Physics, 1974
• Hughes Medal , Royal Society , 1976
• Associate member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts of Belgium , 1989
• Member of the Academia Europaea , 1993

literature

• Antony Hewish , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/1989 of March 13, 1989, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1974 award to Antony Hewish

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Professor Antony Hewish (1924-2021) ( English ) Gonville & Caius College . September 16, 2021. Accessed September 16, 2021.
2. ^ Antony Hewish - Biographical . In: nobelprize.org . Retrieved September 17, 2021.
3. ↑ Janus: The Papers of Professor Antony Hewish . In: Cambridge University Library . Retrieved September 17, 2021.
4. ↑ Professor Antony Hewish, astronomer who jointly won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of pulsars - obituary ( English ) September 16, 2021. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.