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Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley
Beatrice M Tinsley was very nearly unique among modern astronomers in having solved a fundamental problem as part of her PhD dissertation. Much of the rest of her tragically short career was spent in improving that solution and tracing out its implications for other areas of astronomy and cosmology. Let us meet Beatrice1 first; then the problem and her solution to it, followed by the later lives of both the astronomer and the astronomical topic; and end with reference to one or two other astronomers (also, as it happens, women, and not including the author, whose dissertation on the Crab Nebula was perfectly adequate, but not pioneering astrophysics) who solved major problems early in their careers (Box 1).
Beatrice was the middle of three daughters of a family with roots in Wales (father Edward E O Hill) and Scotland (mother Jean Morton) and a deep appreciation of music and literature. She herself was a fine violinist and wrote, whether for fellow scientists or for broader audiences, with unusual clarity and a style that brings back her voice even now. That voice was distinctly one of New Zealand, for, in 1946, her father accepted the first of a series of positions in the Anglican church there, eventually settling in as vicar in the town of New Phymouth, on the west coast of North Island. He later moved on to a secular position as Lord Mayor of the town and gradually loosened his connections with the church, which Beatrice herself had left long before. Her mother predeceased her, and she was survived by her father, stepmother, sisters, ex-husband and two adopted children. The land where she grew up left a second trace beside the characteristic ‘kiwi’ accent. She nearly always wore her hair pinned firmly back and, when asked why, replied, ‘the average wind speed in Wellington, New Zealand is 40 miles per hour.’
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