Taylor, Joseph H., Jr.

Taylor, Joseph H., Jr.

(1941– ) radio astronomer; born in Philadelphia. After studying at Haverford (B.A. 1963) and Harvard (Ph.D. 1968), he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts: Amherst (1969–80). In 1974 he and a graduate assistant, Russell A. Hulse, discovered the first binary pulsar using the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico; for this discovery and its contribution to understanding gravitation, they would be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1993. Taylor helped found the Five College Radio Observatory, where further research on pulsars confirmed in 1978 Einstein's theory of gravitational waves, thus adding to the understanding of the laws governing the universe. In 1980 Taylor joined the physics faculty at Princeton University.