Contents of This Unit
Audio clips and accompanying text
These are central to every format of presentation. Test trials of these
materials showed that in classroom use, it is best to have students read
the script simultaneously with listening to the audio, rather than listen
to the audio alone. Permission is granted to the instructor to make photocopies
of the script for the purpose of providing every student or every pair of
students with a script, for classroom use.
The exhibit can conveniently be broken into two segments. The first part
includes narration and excerpts from interviews with Cocke and Disney relating
the events leading up to the discovery. The second part is the audio recording
of the scientists on the night of the discovery.
We need your feedback so we can do more exhibits like this! Both our funding and our enthusiasm could falter if we don't hear from users. Please e-mail us or use the online form to tell us how useful this was to you (a brief word is great, comments and suggestions better still).
Articles:
George Greenstein, excerpt from Frozen Star, pg. 13-31, New American Library Trade (May 1985).
The
unit includes original research papers excerpts—
Hewish, Bell, et al., "Observation of
a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source," Nature vol 217, p.709
(24 Feb. 1968).
Cocke, Disney, and Taylor, "Discovery of Optical Signals from Pulsar NP 0532," Nature vol. 221, p. 525-27 (8 Feb. 1969).
a
primary resource—
extract from laboratory notes of John Cocke, night
of 15 Jan. 1969.
articles
on the physics of pulsars—
DiLavore and Wayland, "Pulsars for the Beginner," The Physics Teacher vol., p.232-237 (May 1971).
media
account—
"Pulsar Detected Optically," Sky
and Telescope, p. 135 (March 1969).
and
additional readings—
Table of contents from Davies and Smith, ed., The
Crab Nebula, International Astronomical Union Symposium no. 46,
Aug.5-7, 1970 (Dordrecht: S. Reidel; N.Y.: Springer Verlag, 1971).
Application for time on a telescope (1983).
Exercises
The unit presents suggestions for assorted activities, demonstrations, questions, problems, and experiments.
These exercises have been labeled as Discussion, Investigation, or Research.
Discussion exercises (D) require no preparation or reading by the student. These exercises can be used for class discussions or as homework assignments.
Investigation questions (I) require the reading of an article which is included in this unit, or the use of reference works such as an encyclopedia. Instructors can make the articles available for a more comprehensive assignment.
Research questions (R) require library work. Some of these exercises are quite extensive and should be treated as long-term projects.
The physics/astronomy exercises are identified as simple or complex.
A simple exercise (S) requires no background material and is a suitable class or homework assignment.
A complex exercise (C) requires that the student have access to a physics text or to some laborabory equipment.
Bibliography:
The unit includes an annotated bibliography for instructor and student use.