The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics to
Joseph H. Taylor Jr and Russell A. Hulse
for their discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation.
Two stars for general relativity
On 2 July 1974 the first signals were discovered from a binary pulsar, two neutron stars that orbit each other. It turned out that they could be used to demonstrate the existence of gravitational radiation. It seems that Einstein was right…
At the time of the discovery Russell Hulse (right) was a graduate student and Joseph Taylor was his supervisor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Taylor is currently Professor of Physics and Hulse is researching in plasma physics, both at Princeton University, USA.
