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Russell Alan Hulse

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Russell Alan Hulse (born 1950) is an American physicist who, as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, discovered the first binary pulsar (PSR B1913+16) in 1974 together with his thesis advisor Joseph Taylor. The discovery provided the first indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity, through measurements of the system's orbital decay. Hulse and Taylor shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.

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What did Russell Alan Hulse discover with Joseph Taylor?

Hulse and his thesis adviser Joseph H. Taylor Jr. discovered the first known binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16, in 1974. They detected it with the 300-meter Arecibo radio telescope while Hulse was a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

How did Hulse's binary pulsar support Einstein's theory of relativity?

PSR B1913+16's orbit gradually shrinks at the rate predicted if the system is losing energy through gravitational radiation. This supplied the first strong indirect evidence for gravitational waves, decades before LIGO detected them directly.

Why did Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor receive the Nobel Prize?

Hulse and Taylor shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering a new type of pulsar that opened new ways to study gravity. Their binary system became an unusually precise laboratory for testing Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Did Russell Hulse remain a pulsar astronomer after his discovery?

Hulse did not build his later career primarily around pulsar astronomy. He moved into plasma physics and worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, while Taylor continued major research involving pulsars.