Joseph H. Taylor Jr.Born 24 Mar 1941.American radio astronomer and physicist who shared(with Russell A. Hulse)the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery of the first binary pulsar (1974). This unique phenomenon, two stars orbiting each other - one of them giving off regular radio-frequency "beeps" - has been important as a deep space proving ground for Einstein's general theory of relativity. Their research group at Princeton used the 1,000 foot radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the largest and most sensitive in the world for catching radio waves from space |