Brian Josephson

Brian Josephson
photograph
Josephson in March 2004
Born
Brian David Josephson

(1940-01-04) 4 January 1940 (age 84)
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
Known forJosephson effect
Spouse
Carol Anne Olivier
(m. 1976)
[1]
Children1[1][2]
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisNon-linear conduction in superconductors (1964)
Doctoral advisorBrian Pippard
Websitewww.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10

Brian David Josephson FRS (born 4 January 1940) is a British theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge.[3] Best known for his pioneering work on superconductivity and quantum tunnelling, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for his prediction of the Josephson effect, made in 1962 when he was a 22-year-old PhD student at Cambridge University. Josephson is the first Welshman to have won a Nobel Prize in Physics. He shared the prize with physicists Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever, who jointly received half the award for their own work on quantum tunnelling.[4][5]

Josephson has spent his academic career as a member of the Theory of Condensed Matter group at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. He has been a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge since 1962, and served as professor of physics from 1974 until 2007.[4]

In the early 1970s, Josephson took up transcendental meditation and turned his attention to issues outside the boundaries of mainstream science. He set up the Mind–Matter Unification Project at Cavendish to explore the idea of intelligence in nature, the relationship between quantum mechanics and consciousness, and the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism, broadly known as quantum mysticism.[6] He has expressed support for topics such as parapsychology, water memory and cold fusion, which has made him a focus of criticism from fellow scientists.[4][5]

  1. ^ a b "JOSEPHSON, Prof. Brian David". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Who was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Emeritus Faculty Staff List" Archived 25 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
  4. ^ a b c "Brian D. Josephson", Encyclopædia Britannica.
  5. ^ a b Glorfeld, Jeff (18 March 2019). "Science history: The man attempting to merge physics and the paranormal". cosmosmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
  6. ^ "Mind–Matter Unification Project (TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory)", University of Cambridge.
    Brian Josephson, "Foreword," in Michael A. Thalbourne and Lance Storm (eds.), Parapsychology in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the Future of Psychical research, McFarland, 2005, pp. 1–2.
    Brian Josephson, "We Think That We Think Clearly, But That's Only Because We Don't Think Clearly," in Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit (eds.), Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003, pp. 107–115.
    Jessica Utts and Brian Josephson, "Do you believe in psychic phenomena? Are they likely to be able to explain consciousness?", Times Higher Education, 8 April 1996.

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