Discovery
Before the nature of the signal was determined, the researchers, Bell and her Ph.D supervisor Antony Hewish, somewhat seriously considered the possibility of extraterrestrial life:
We did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem - if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe how does one announce the results responsibly? Who does one tell first?
The observation was given the half-humorous designation Little green men 1, until researchers Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle correctly identified these signals as rapidly rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields.
Read more about this topic: PSR B1919+21
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“However backwards the world has been in former ages in the discovery of such points as GOD never meant us to know,—we have been more successful in our own days:Mthousands can trace out now the impressions of this divine intercourse in themselves, from the first moment they received it, and with such distinct intelligence of its progress and workings, as to require no evidence of its truth.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)