Word: hewish
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...contributions to world peace. Writes Zuckerman: "The prizes cannot go, however great the importance of their contributions, to mathematicians, earth and marine scientists, astronomers, and many kinds of geologists and behavioral scientists." She notes that the rules have been bent a bit-for Radio Astronomers Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish in 1974, and for Ethologists Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch in 1973. But still unlikely to be considered for the Nobel Prize are pioneers in exciting new fields like plate tectonics, a unified geological theory that explains continental drift, earthquakes, ocean trenches and mountain formation...
Last week Hewish's receipt of that award became embroiled in a bitter controversy. At a press conference at Montreal's McGill University, Britain's Sir Fred Hoyle, a noted astronomer, theoretician, science fiction writer (The Black Cloud) and scientific gadfly, had charged that Hewish "pinched" the prize for himself by failing to give Jocelyn Bell proper credit. Asked by a reporter if he considered it a scientific injustice to leave Bell out of the award, Hoyle replied: "Yes, I think it was a scientific scandal of major proportions...
Angry Retort. In Cambridge, Hewish angrily retorted that Bell's name had been associated with the discovery from the start and labeled Hoyle's charge "untrue" and "ridiculous." An expert from the Nobel awards committee, Swedish Physicist Hans Wilhelmsson said, "We would have been happy to give the prize to this other person, but there wasn't enough reason to do so." Added Caltech Astrophysicist Jesse Greenstein: "Her role was like that of a part-time newspaper correspondent who spots a big fire but doesn't - or can't - do anything about...
...some scientists think that Hoyle has raised a valid issue that might be resolved if more information was revealed about the discovery. For example, asks Cornell Astronomer Thomas Gold: "Did Hewish first recognize that the signals were of a sidereal nature - coming from a source that rises and sets each day with the stars rather than the sun - or was it Miss Bell?" If so, says Gold, "she deserves a major share of the honor." For, he adds, "that realization would have been the first firm indication that the signals were coming from beyond the solar system and represented...
...married, the mother of a two-year-old son and a part-time X-ray astronomer at the University of London, Jocelyn Bell Burnell acknowledges that she "made him [Hewish] aware of their sidereal nature and convinced him that it was worth looking into more closely." But she adds: "Nobel Prizes are based on longstanding research, not on a flash-in-the-pan observation of a research student. The award to me would have debased the prize...