Frank Donald Drake was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. He was most notable as one of the pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the founder of SETI. He was Emeritus Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he also served as Dean of Natural Sciences (1984–88). He…
Freeman John Dyson was a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and lived in Princeton, New Jersey, for over fifty years. Dyson was also a member…
John Richard Gott III is a Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University who is noted for his contributions to cosmology and general relativity. During his high school years, he won several science fair awards, including the prestigious Westinghouse Talent Search. Twenty years later, he became the chairman of the Judges of this same competition.…
George Francis Rayner Ellis is the Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world’s leading…
Alan Harvey Guth is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is currently serving as Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is the originator of the inflationary universe theory. He graduated from…
Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble Constant, and as John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She received a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Joining the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, as a post-doctoral…
Willem Bernard Drees is professor of philosophy of the humanities at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. From 2008 until 2018 he was the editor-in-chief of Zygon, Journal of Religion & Science and professor of philosophy of religion at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Drees has been the editor or co-editor of twenty books, published more than…
Owen Gingerich (1930–2023) was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and History of Science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he wrote many books on the history of astronomy. Gingerich was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the…
Bernard J. Carr is a Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London. His research interests include the early universe, dark matter, general relativity, primordial black holes, and the anthropic principle. Carr completed his BA in mathematics in 1972 at Trinity College, Cambridge. For his doctorate, obtained in 1976, he studied relativity…
Robin Collins is an American philosopher. He currently serves as Professor of Philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. His main interests include the relationship between religion and science and philosophical theology. Collins originally attended Washington State University and was a triple major in Applied Mathematics, Physics, and…
Anthony Aguirre is Associate Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz. He is Co-Founder and Associate Scientific Director of The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi; see www.fqxi.org). Aguirre received his PhD in Astronomy in 2000 from Harvard University. He then spent three years as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study…
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is also a contributing editor of Reason magazine. As a science fiction author, Benford is perhaps best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with…