Pulsating Stars: the Historical Context of Post Detection in the Field of Physics and Astronomy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28976/1984-2686rbpec2022u633659Keywords:
History of Physics and Astronomy, Nature of Science, Teaching of PhysicsAbstract
In February 1968, the then postgraduate student Jocelyn Bell, her advisor Antony Hewish and other members of the Radio Astronomy Group at Cambridge University published an article in the journal Nature about “unusual signals” in the data coming from her radio telescope, initially identified in mid-August 1967. This mobilized the scientific community to understand this allegedly new astronomical object: the pulsars. In this paper, we aim to discuss historical aspects involved in the process of conceptual understanding of pulsars, based on scientific articles published at the time; comments on the episode by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish, and also on secondary sources on the history of pulsars. From studies of Ludwik Fleck and Thomas Kuhn, discussions of Nature of Science consist, for example, in temporal extension and collective construction of a scientific discovery, as well as in the complex process of circulation of theories and observations of a phenomenon among astronomers.
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