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Andrew Lyne

 

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Andrew Lyne



 
 
Andrew G. Lyne FRS (born 1942) is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
. Lyne is Langworthy Professor of Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester

The School of Physics and Astronomy, formed by the merger of the Departments of Physics at the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST in 2004 when the universities merged to form the University of Manchester, is one of the largest and most active physics departments in the United Kingdom and includes the Jodrell Bank Observatory....
, as well as an ex-director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory and leader of its .

Professor Lyne was educated at The Portsmouth Grammar School
The Portsmouth Grammar School

The Portsmouth Grammar School is an independent coeducational day school located in Portsmouth, England....
, and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge , located in Cambridge, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation university in the Anglosphere....
 (natural sciences), continuing to the University of Manchester for a PhD in Radio Astronomy.

Lyne writes on his homepage at that he is "mostly interested in finding and understanding radio pulsars in all their various forms and with their various companions.






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Andrew G. Lyne FRS (born 1942) is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
. Lyne is Langworthy Professor of Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester

The School of Physics and Astronomy, formed by the merger of the Departments of Physics at the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST in 2004 when the universities merged to form the University of Manchester, is one of the largest and most active physics departments in the United Kingdom and includes the Jodrell Bank Observatory....
, as well as an ex-director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory and leader of its .

Professor Lyne was educated at The Portsmouth Grammar School
The Portsmouth Grammar School

The Portsmouth Grammar School is an independent coeducational day school located in Portsmouth, England....
, and the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge , located in Cambridge, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation university in the Anglosphere....
 (natural sciences), continuing to the University of Manchester for a PhD in Radio Astronomy.

Lyne writes on his homepage at that he is "mostly interested in finding and understanding radio pulsars in all their various forms and with their various companions. Presently, I am most occupied with the development of new multibeam search systems at Jodrell and Parkes, in order to probe deeper into the Galaxy, particularly for millisecond pulsar
Pulsar

Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The observed periods of their pulses range from 1.4 milliseconds to 8.5 seconds....
s, young pulsars and any that might be in binary
Binary star

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star or secondary....
 systems."

Pulsar Planet?

Andrew Lyne and Matthew Bailes thought that they had made a remarkable discovery in 1991, when they reported that they had discovered a pulsar orbited by a planetary companion; this would have been the first planet detected around another star. However, after this was announced, the group went back and checked their work, and found that they had not properly removed the effects of the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
's motion around the Sun
Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
 from their analysis, and, when the calculations were redone correctly, the pulse variations that led to their conclusions disappeared, and that there was in fact no planet around PSR 1829-10
PSR 1829-10

PSR B1829-10, often shortened to PSR 1829-10 is a pulsar approximately 30,000 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum. This pulsar has been the target of interest because of a mistaken identification of a extrasolar planet around it....
. When Lyne announced the retraction of his results at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society
American Astronomical Society

The American Astronomical Society is a United States society of professional astronomy and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC....
, he received a standing ovation from his scientific colleagues for having the intellectual integrity and the courage to admit this error publicly.

Binary Pulsar

No retraction was necessary in 2003, when Lyne and his team discovered , the first binary system found in which both components were pulsed neutron star
Neutron star

A neutron star is a type of compact star that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II supernova, Type Ib and Ic supernovae supernova event....
s. Lyne's colleague Richard Manchester called the PSR J0737-3039
PSR J0737-3039

|- style="vertical-align: top;"| Cosmic distance ladder | 1600 - 2000 Light year PSR J0737-3039 is a binary pulsar system discovered in 2003, the first known double pulsar....
 system a "fantastic natural laboratory" for studying specialized effects of the General Theory of Relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
. Other recent work that Dr. Lyne has undertaken includes research on the globular cluster at , whose dense stellar population acts as a nursery for millisecond and binary pulsars.

In Popular Culture


The American band Neutrino wrote and recorded a song named for Lyne, and included it on their 1998 album Improved Hearing Through Amplification.

See also

  • Pulsar planet
    Pulsar planet

    Pulsar planets are planets that are found orbiting pulsars, or rapidly rotating neutron stars. The first such planet to be discovered was around a millisecond pulsar and was the first extrasolar planet to be discovered....
    s
  • Hypothetical planet
    Hypothetical planet

    A hypothetical Solar System object is a planet, natural satellite or similar body in our Solar System whose existence is not known, but has been inferred from observational scientific evidence....