Dennis W. Sciama

Dennis William Siahou Sciama, FRS (/ʃiˈæmə/; 18 November 1926 – 18 December 1999)^[7][8] was an English physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War.^[9][10] He was the PhD supervisor to many famous physicists and astrophysicists, including John D. Barrow, David Deutsch, George F. R. Ellis, Stephen Hawking, Adrian Melott and Martin Rees, among others; he is considered one of the fathers of modern cosmology.^{[11][12][13][14]}

Education and early life

Sciama was born in Manchester, England, the son of Nelly Ades and Abraham Sciama.^[15] He was of Syrian-Jewish ancestry — his father born in Manchester and his mother born in Egypt, but both traced their roots back to Aleppo, Syria.^[16]

Sciama earned his PhD in 1953 at the University of Cambridge supervised by Paul Dirac,^[2] with a dissertation on Mach's principle and inertia. His work later influenced the formulation of scalar-tensor theories of gravity.

Career and research

Sciama taught at

During the 1990s, he divided his time between Trieste (with a residence in nearby Venice) and his main residence at Oxford, where he was a visiting professor until the end of his life.

Sciama made connections among some topics in

Early in his career, he supported

During his last years, Sciama became interested in the issue of dark matter in galaxies. Among other aspects he pursued a theory of dark matter that consists of a heavy neutrino, certainly disfavored in his realization, but still possible in a more complicated scenario.

Doctoral students

Several leading astrophysicists and cosmologists of the modern era completed their doctorates under Sciama's supervision, notably:

Sciama also strongly influenced Roger Penrose, who dedicated his The Road to Reality to Sciama's memory. The 1960s group he led in Cambridge (which included Ellis, Hawking,^[20] Rees, and Carter), has proved of lasting influence.

Publications

• Sciama, Dennis (1959). The Unity of the Universe. London: Faber & Faber.
• Sciama, Dennis (1969). "The Physical Foundations of General Relativity". Science Study Series. 58. New York: Doubleday.
  Bibcode:1969pfgr.book.....S
  . Short (104 pages) and clearly written non-mathematical book on the physical and conceptual foundations of General Relativity. Could be read with profit by physics students before immersing themselves in more technical studies of General Relativity.
• Sciama, Dennis (1971). Modern Cosmology. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 9780521080699
  .
• Sciama, Dennis (1993). Modern Cosmology and the Dark Matter Problem. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 9780521438483
  .

Sciama was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1983.^[7] He was also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Academia Lincei of Rome. He served as president of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation, 1980–84.

His work at SISSA and the University of Oxford led to the creation of a lecture series in his honour, the

Sciama has been portrayed in a number of biographical projects about his most famous student, Stephen Hawking. In the 2004 BBC TV movie Hawking, Sciama was played by John Sessions. In the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, Sciama was played by David Thewlis; physicist Adrian Melott strongly criticized the portrayal of Sciama in the film.^[23]

Personal life

Sciama was of Jewish-Syrian descent and an avowed atheist.^[24] In 1959, Sciama married Lidia Dina, a social anthropologist, who survived him, along with their two daughters.^[7]

References