TALK: Ryle and Hewish: 50 and 100 Year Anniversaries
[Radio Astrophysics and the Rise of High Energy Astrophysics]

ABSTRACT: This lecture celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Martin Ryle and the 50th Anniversary of the discovery of pulsars. They jointly received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, the first in the area of astrophysics, for the implementation of aperture synthesis (Ryle) and the discovery of pulsars (Hewish). In fact, their interests strongly overlapped, one of the key papers on the implementation of Aperture Synthesis being co-authored by Ryle and Hewish. The details of the discovery of pulsars and the roles played by Hewish and Bell will be described. These key advances were at the heart of the dramatic rise of high energy astrophysics and the realisation that general relativity is central to the understanding of high energy astrophysical phenomena.