My thesis project was to identify quasars, which are very distant, very energetic objects and still quite mysterious. Jocelyn Bell Burnell More Quotes by Jocelyn Bell Burnell More Quotes From Jocelyn Bell Burnell There is stardust in your veins. We are literally, ultimately children of the stars. Jocelyn Bell Burnell yourveinsstarschildren 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 universeenergymatterdark In the field of astronomy in the mid-'60s, quasars were very sexy objects - gigantic, star-like masses about which little was known. I was a graduate research student at Cambridge working towards my Ph.D. and chose quasars as the subject for my thesis. Part of my project involved surveying the sky for them using a radio telescope. Jocelyn Bell Burnell studentsexyresearchsky I may not have got the Nobel Prize, but I've won countless other awards, including 'Most Inspirational Living Woman Scientist.' Jocelyn Bell Burnell womanlivingawardsinspirational When I got engaged to be married, it was assumed that I would quit science and be a housewife. It was considered shameful if a married woman had to work - it implied that her husband couldn't earn enough to keep her. Jocelyn Bell Burnell womanhusbandworkscience A search for truth seems to me to be full of pitfalls. We all have different understandings of what truth is, and we'll each believe - or we are in danger of each believing - that our truth is the one and only absolute truth, which is why I say it's full of pitfalls. Jocelyn Bell Burnell metruth-istruthbelieve 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 alonestarslifebelieve People from different backgrounds approach a subject in different ways and ask different questions. Jocelyn Bell Burnell askquestionsdifferentpeople Science is a quest for understanding. Jocelyn Bell Burnell questunderstandingscience 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 mindsbackradiospace I'm one of the few women in science. I have pioneered that. One of the things I worry about is what that pioneering has done to me. I have had to fight quite hard most of the way through life. Jocelyn Bell Burnell mewomenlifescience Once a star dies, it's gone forever. There are no new stars to take its place. Eventually, there will be no stars, and the universe will turn black. That really will be the end. Jocelyn Bell Burnell placeuniverseblackstars 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 streetyouuniversewalking I was born in Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster, and I'm Scots-Irish, therefore. Jocelyn Bell Burnell i-was-bornalsonorthern-irelandborn I'm the eldest of four children: a brother next after me and then two sisters. Jocelyn Bell Burnell menextbrotherchildren My father was an architect. Jocelyn Bell Burnell architectfather We didn't get television until quite late, the late fifties, but we had radio, and I can remember listening to the Korean War news on the radio with my family and sensing the anxiety of the adults although not understanding it myself, not understanding exactly what was going on. Jocelyn Bell Burnell myselffamilyrememberwar I didn't always have research jobs. Jocelyn Bell Burnell alwaysresearchjobs Arguably, my student status and perhaps my gender were also my downfall with respect to the Nobel Prize, which was awarded to Professor Antony Hewish and Professor Martin Ryle. At the time, science was still perceived as being carried out by distinguished men. Jocelyn Bell Burnell respecttimemenscience We live inside our universe and cannot get a bird's-eye view of it from outside. And we cannot even see all of our universe. Distant parts of it are expanding away from us so fast that they are invisible; they go faster than the speed of light. Having bigger telescopes to see fainter stars will not help us here: invisible is truly invisible. Jocelyn Bell Burnell viewuniversestarslight
