Kip Thorne is a theoretical physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology until 2009. Thorne received his BS degree from Caltech in 1962 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1965. After two years of postdoctoral study, Thorne…
Xiao-Gang Wen is a Chinese-born American physicist. He is a Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His expertise is in condensed matter theory in strongly correlated electronic systems. He is the author of a well-known book in advanced quantum many-body theory entitled, Quantum Field Theory of Many-body Systems:…
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…
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 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a member of…
Lothar Schafer is a quantum chemist and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Arkansas. Schäfer and his coworkers are interested in applying computational chemistry to the structural and dynamical properties of proteins. Recently we developed an algorithm that allows predicting backbone bond lengths and angles in proteins from first principles (i.e. ab initio…
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…
Henry Stapp is an American physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the “orthodox” quantum mechanics of John von Neumann. Stapp earned a BS in Physics from the University of Michigan, and an MA…
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.…
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…
Dean Rickles is Professor of History and Philosophy of Modern Physics at the University of Sydney and a Director of the Sydney Centre for Time. Rickles received his PhD from the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Steven French, with a thesis on conceptual issues in quantum gravity. He took up a postdoctoral fellowship…