Paul Davies

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For other persons named Paul Davies, see Paul Davies (disambiguation).
Paul C. W. Davies
At the World Science Festival in June 2008
At the World Science Festival in June 2008
Born April 22, 1946 (1946-04-22) (age 62)
London, England
Residence UK
Australia
U.S.
Citizenship Dual British- Australian
Fields Physicist
Institutions Arizona State University
University of Cambridge
University of Adelaide
Macquarie University
University of Newcastle
Alma mater University College London
Doctoral advisor Michael J. Seaton
Sigurd Zienau
Other academic advisors Fred Hoyle
Doctoral students Nicholas Birrell
Edmund Copeland
Kerry Hinton
Don Koks
Andrew Matacz
William Walker
Known for Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect
Bunch-Davies vacuum state
Notable awards Kelvin Medal (2001)
Faraday Prize (2002)
Templeton Prize (1995)
Religious stance His position is "undecided", though his writings lean toward non-Platonistic Theism

Paul Charles William Davies (born April 22, 1946) is a British-born physicist, writer and broadcaster, presently a professor at Arizona State University, as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He has held previous academic appointments at the University of Cambridge, University of London, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, University of Adelaide and Macquarie University. His research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. He has proposed that a one-way trip to Mars could be a viable option.

In 2005, he took up the chair of the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics.

He was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium held on November 2006.


Contents

[edit] Education

In 1970, he completed his PhD entitled Contributions to Theoretical Physics: (i) Radiation Damping in the Optical Continuum (ii) A Quantum Theory of Wheeler-Feynman Electrodynamics under Michael J. Seaton and Sigurd Zienau at University College London. He then was a postdoc under Fred Hoyle at the University of Cambridge.

[edit] Scientific Research

Davies's inquiries have included theoretical physics, cosmology, and astrobiology; his research has been mainly in the area of quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Notable contributions are the so-called Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect, according to which an observer accelerating through empty space will perceive a bath of thermal radiation, and the Bunch-Davies vacuum state, often used as the basis for explaining the fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang. A paper co-authored with Stephen Fulling and William Unruh was the first to suggest that black holes evaporating via the Hawking effect lose mass as a result of a flux of negative energy streaming into the hole from the surrounding space. Davies has had a longstanding association with the problem of time’s arrow, and was also a forerunner of the theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars cocooned in rocks ejected by asteroid and comet impacts. During his time in Australia he helped establish the Australian Centre for Astrobiology.

[edit] Books

He is the author of over twenty books, including The Mind of God'(1992)'and God and the New Physics(1983).

  • 1980 Other Worlds
  • 1981 The Edge of Infinity
  • 1978 The Runaway Universe/Stardoom
  • 1987 The Cosmic Blueprint
  • 1995 Are We Alone?
  • 1998 The Fifth Miracle
  • 1994 The Last Three Minutes
  • 1984 Superforce
  • 1982 The Accidental Universe
  • 1995 About Time
  • 1982 "Quantum Fields in Curved Space" (with N.D. Birrell)
  • 1974 "The Physics of Time Asymmetry"
  • 2001 How to Build a Time Machine
  • 1991 "The Matter Myth "
  • "The Goldilocks Enigma", also under the title Cosmic Jackpot

He was also heavily referenced in the novel Naive. Super by Norwegian writer Erlend Loe (translated by Tor Ketil Solberg), published in 1996.

[edit] Awards

Davies' talent as a communicator of science has been recognized in Australia by an Advance Australia Award and two Eureka Prizes, and in the UK by the 2001 Kelvin Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics, and the 2002 Faraday Prize by The Royal Society. Davies received the Templeton Prize in 1995.

Davies was made a member of the Order of Australia in the 2007 Queen's birthday honours list

He has an Erdős Number of three.[1]

[edit] Media activity

Davies is well-known as a science popularizer and public commentator on a range of issues. He made a series of science documentaries for BBC Radio 3, and two six-part television series, The Big Questions and More Big Questions, for broadcast in Australia. His 60 minute BBC television documentary ‘The Cradle of Life’ featured the subject of his Faraday Prize lecture. He writes regularly for newspapers and magazines worldwide.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The AMS collaboration data base (corroborated by Jerry Grossman, 2007, private communication) lists this path: Borosh, I.; Chui, C. K.; Erdos, P. On changes of signs in infinite series. (Russian summary) Anal. Math. 4 (1978), no. 1, 3–12. \rightarrow Fulling, Stephen A.(1-TXAM); Borosh, Itshak(1-TXAM); da Conturbia, Andrea(1-TXAM) Cataloguing general graphs by point and line spectra. (English summary) Comput. Phys. Comm. 115 (1998), no. 2-3, 93–112. \rightarrow Davies, P. C. W.; Fulling, S. A.; Christensen, S. M.; Bunch, T. S. Energy-momentum tensor of a massless scalar quantum field in a Robertson-Walker universe. Ann. Physics 109 (1977), no. 1, 108–142.

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Davies, Paul C.W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION British- Australian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH London, England
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH