Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr.

Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. is an American astrophysicist who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering a binary pulsar and testing general relativity with it.

Hulse–Taylor binary: A binary system of a pulsar and a neutron star whose changing orbit provides a precise test of general relativity. Taylor and Hulse discovered this system and tracked its orbital decay.
Pulsar timing: The measurement of pulse arrival times from a pulsar to study its rotation, motion, or surroundings. Precise timing exposed the binary’s changing orbit despite its great distance.
Russell Alan Hulse: An American physicist who discovered the first binary pulsar with Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. Hulse was Taylor’s doctoral student and co-discoverer of the landmark system.
Binary neutron star: A gravitationally bound pair of neutron stars that orbit a shared center of mass. The Hulse–Taylor binary is a neutron-star system used to test relativistic gravity.
Gravitational wave: A ripple in spacetime produced by accelerating masses and propagating outward at the speed of light. The binary’s shrinking orbit matched energy loss predicted from gravitational-wave emission.
Radio pulsar: A rotating neutron star that emits beams of radio waves observed as periodic pulses. Taylor’s discovery relied on the regular radio pulses of a neutron star.
Antony Hewish: A British radio astronomer who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of pulsars. Pulsar discovery opened the observational field in which Taylor made his career.
Gravitational-wave astronomy: The study of astronomical sources through gravitational waves detected on Earth or inferred from their effects. Taylor’s indirect evidence anticipated later direct observations of gravitational waves.
General relativity: Einstein’s theory of gravity, describing gravitation as the curvature of spacetime by matter and energy. The binary pulsar’s orbital changes tested a key prediction of this theory.
Orbital decay: The gradual reduction of a binary system’s orbital period or size through energy loss. The measured decay in the Hulse–Taylor system matched relativistic predictions.

Linked from 2 pages

Pulsar timing arrayRelated: Binary-pulsar timing established gravitational-wave tests that helped motivate later timing-array searches.