Wojciech Hubert Zurek is a Polish-born naturalized American theoretical physicist and a leading authority on quantum theory, especially decoherence and non-equilibrium dynamics of symmetry breaking and resulting defect generation (known as Kibble-Zurek mechanism). He was educated in Kraków, Poland (MS. 1974) and Austin, Texas (PhD 1979). He spent two years at Caltech as a Tolman…
Robert John Russell is founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). He is also the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). He has written and edited a great deal on possible scientific mechanisms for the beliefs of Christianity. Russell…
Quentin Persifor Smith was an American philosopher. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked in the philosophy of time, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics and philosophy of religion. He worked on the philosophy of time, philosophy of religion, naturalism and atheism, philosophy of Big Bang cosmology,…
Robert Lee Park is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and a former Director of Public Information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. Park is most noted for his critical commentaries on alternative medicine and pseudoscience, as well as his criticism of how legitimate science is…
George Fitzgerald Smoot III is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer with John C. Mather. Smoot’s work has helped further the Big Bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE). Smoot donated his share…
Saul Perlmutter is an American astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Brian P. Schmidt and Adam Riess for discovering that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Perlmutter leads the international Supernova Cosmology Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he…
Schäfer was a quantum chemist in the University of Arkansas’ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and was the first researcher to use analytical derivatives in systematic geometry optimizations to augment electron diffraction results. Schäfer was born in Dusseldorf, Germany to Ernst and Sybille Schäfer, well-known butchers in the area. Despite their encouragement to pursue the…
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. Smolin is best known for devising several approaches to quantum gravity, in particular loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two primary approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum…
The Rev. John Charlton Polkinghorne was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. He was professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge for 11 years, after which he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest. He served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge for…
Sir Roger Penrose is a British mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. Penrose is internationally renowned for his scientific work in mathematical physics,…
Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe. Her best known contribution to the field is the Randall-Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum.…
Russell Stannard (1931–2022) was a retired high-energy particle physicist and Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Open University. Stannard studied Physics at University College London, where he earned a B.S. in Special Physics, followed by a Ph.D. in Cosmic Ray Physics. He served as a lecturer at University College London before beginning his career at…