Antony Hewish Autograph

Profession:
(1924-) British radio astronomer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Year of Birth: 1924

Antony Hewish is a British radio astronomer and Nobel Laureate, renowned for his work on the discovery of pulsars and for developing the techniques used to detect them. He was born on 11 May 1924 in Fowey, Cornwall, England. He attended grammar school in St Austell, where he developed an early interest in physics and electronics. He then went on to study at the University of Cambridge, where he gained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1945, and then his PhD in Radio Astronomy in 1954.

Hewish began his professional career as a research assistant at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, where he worked on early experiments in radio astronomy. In the 1950s, he began to work with Jocelyn Bell, a student at the university, on a new project to detect radio signals from space. The pair eventually discovered the first pulsar in 1967, which revolutionised our understanding of the universe.

Hewish's work on the discovery of pulsars earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974. He was the first radio astronomer to be recognised by the Nobel committee. He went on to become a professor at the University of Cambridge, and continued to work on radio astronomy until his retirement in 1989. He was also awarded the Eddington Medal in 1973 for his work on the discovery of pulsars.

Hewish's other scientific contributions include the development of the Intensity Interferometer, which is used to measure the intensity of radio waves from space. He also developed the concept of aperture synthesis, which is used to produce higher resolution images of distant objects in astronomy. He was a pioneer in the field of interferometry and his work on this topic is widely recognised.

Hewish has received many honours and awards throughout his career, including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1975, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1977, and the Gold Medal of the Institute of Physics in 1984. In addition, he was made a Companion of Honour in 2004, and was inducted into the UK Hall of Fame in 2008.

Hewish's work has had a profound impact on the field of astronomy and our understanding of the universe. His contributions to the discovery of pulsars, aperture synthesis, and interferometry have earned him a place amongst the most influential scientists of the twentieth century.