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Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, endowed with a strong magnetic field. They are among the densest objects in the universe, second only to black holes. However, compared to the latter, they present a major advantage: they can emit light. Indeed, the main property of pulsars is the emission, in the direction of the magnetic axis, of a beam of radiation, which sweeps the line of sight of a distant observer at every turn of the neutron star. This characteristic, in combination with their superb rotational stability, makes pulsars behave as exceptionally precise natural "clocks", which can be used to our advantage. In this talk, I will guide through the realm of pulsars, showing how these fascinating objects can be profitably exploited to conduct a plethora of fundamental physics and astrophysics experiments. Pulsars are typically observed with large, ground-based radio telescopes. As several new ones have recently come online or are under construction, I will also touch upon the current state of the art and future of pulsar observing facilities. In particular, I will discuss how the new telescopes (most notably the SKA) are expected to produce huge volumes of data, which will pose significant challenges from a computational standpoint and will require new strategies for their reduction and analyses.
Dekan