John D. Barrow

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For other people named John Barrow, see John Barrow (disambiguation).

John Barrow

Dennis William Sciama[1]
Doctoral studentsPeter Coles
David Wands[1]

John David Barrow FRS[2] (29 November 1952 – 26 September 2020) was an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He served as Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College from 2008 to 2011.[3] Barrow was also a writer of popular science and an amateur playwright.[4]

Education

Barrow attended Barham Primary School in Wembley until 1964 and

Dennis William Sciama.[1]

Career and research

Barrow was a Junior Research Lecturer at

Miller Research Fellow in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley
, as a Commonwealth Lindemann Fellow (1977–8) and Miller Fellow (1980–1).

In 1981 he joined the

Cambridge University. From 2003 to 2007 he was Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, and he was appointed as Gresham Professor of Geometry from 2008 to 2011; only one person has previously held two different Gresham chairs.[6]

From 1999, he directed the Millennium Mathematics Project (MMP) at the University of Cambridge. This is an outreach and education programme to improve the appreciation, teaching and learning of mathematics and its applications. In 2006 it was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Educational Achievement by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

In addition to having published more than 500 journal articles, Barrow co-wrote (with

Anthropic Cosmological Principle, a work on the history of the ideas, specifically intelligent design and teleology, as well as a treatise on astrophysics. He also published 22 books for general readers, beginning with his 1983 The Left Hand of Creation. His books summarise the state of the affairs of physical questions, often in the form of compendia of a large number of facts assembled from the works of great physicists, such as Paul Dirac and Arthur Eddington
.

Barrow's approach to philosophical issues posed by physical cosmology made his books accessible to general readers. For example, Barrow introduced a memorable paradox, which he called "the Groucho Marx Effect" (see Russell-like paradoxes). Here, he quotes Groucho Marx: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member". Applying this to problems in cosmology, Barrow stated: "A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it".[7]

Barrow lectured at

Valencia, and won the Premi Ubu 2002 Italian Theatre Prize
.

Honours

Barrow was awarded the 2006 Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" for his "writings about the relationship between life and the universe, and the nature of human understanding [which] have created new perspectives on questions of ultimate concern to science and religion".[8] He was a member of a United Reformed Church, which he described as teaching "a traditional deistic picture of the universe".[9]

In 2008, the Royal Society awarded him the

Gifford Lecturer
at the University of Glasgow in 1989.

He was awarded the Dirac Prize and Gold Medal of the Institute of Physics in 2015 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2016.[10]

Barrow scale

The Barrow scale proposed by him is a measurement of the technological level and mastery of civilizations based upon the smallest structures that they can manipulate. It is a complement to the Kardashev scale, which is based upon the largest structures that can be manipulated.[11][12]

Type Description
I Manipulation of macroscopic structures, as available to an unaided member of the civilisation.
II Manipulation of genes and macromolecules
III Manipulation of molecules and molecular bonds.
IV Access to nanotechnology and atomically precise manufacturing; manipulation of individual atoms.
V Access to picotechnology and femtotechnology; manipulation of individual nuclei.
VI Access to attotechnology and finer; manipulation of elementary particles.
Ω Omega-minus engineering; manipulation of the basic structure of space and time.

Death

Barrow died on 26 September 2020 from

colon cancer, at the age of 67.[13]

Publications

In English:

In other languages:

As editor:

References

  1. ^ a b c John D. Barrow at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. S2CID 250458975
    .
  3. ^ "DAMTP Professor John Barrow". www.damtp.cam.ac.uk.
  4. ^ Marcus de Sautoy (5 November 2003). "To infinity and beyond". The Guardian.
  5. ^ "Durham graduate wins $1M prize". University of Durham Department of Physics. 20 March 2006. Retrieved 24 November 2007.
  6. ^ Gresham College: New Gresham Chair of Geometry Archived 21 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ISBN 0-19-286108-5
    .
  8. ^ Lehr, Donald (15 March 2006). "John Barrow wins 2006 Templeton Prize". templetonprize.org. John Templeton Foundation. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  9. ^ Overbye, Dennis (16 March 2006). "Math Professor Wins a Coveted Religion Award". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 November 2007.
  10. ^ "RAS honours leading astronomers and geophysicist". RAS. 8 January 2016. Archived from the original on 20 July 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  11. ISSN 1745-2481
    .
  12. ^ "SETI: Musings on the Barrow Scale | Centauri Dreams". www.centauri-dreams.org. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  13. ^ a b "Morto John Barrow, cosmologo e divulgatore: aveva 67 anni". ilmessaggero.it (in Italian). 27 September 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  14. ^ French edition: L'Homme et le Cosmos (in French)
  15. ^ earlier edition(1991) Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation

External links

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