Brian Cox (physicist)

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Brian Cox

Brian Cox speaking at TAM London in October 2009
Born 3 March 1968 (1968-03-03) (age 41)
Oldham, Lancashire, England
Nationality British
Fields Particle Physics
Known for LHC, D:Ream

Brian Cox, also known as B. E. Cox (born 3 March 1968, Oldham, Lancashire, England),[1][2] is a particle physicist, a Royal Society research fellow, and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. He is also working on the FP420 R&D project in an international collaboration to upgrade the ATLAS and the CMS experiment by installing additional, smaller detectors at a distance of 420 metres from the interaction points of the main experiments.[3]

He is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programmes for the BBC. He also had some fame in the early 1990s as keyboard player in the UK pop band D:Ream. He is married to TV personality Gia Milinovich, and has a son and a stepson.[4]

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[edit] Studies and career in music

In 1989 Cox was a member of the rock band Dare[5] fronted by former Thin Lizzy member Darren Wharton. After attending Hulme Grammar School in Oldham he studied physics at the University of Manchester where in 1993, while still studying, he joined D:Ream,[6] who had several hits in the UK charts, including a number one hit, New Labour election anthem Things Can Only Get Better.[7] By the time D:Ream disbanded in 1997, Cox had earned a first class honours degree in physics from the University of Manchester, where he was later awarded a PhD degree in high energy particle physics, based on his thesis drawn from work he did for the H1 experiment at the particle accelerator HERA at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg.[8]

[edit] Academic, television and radio

Cox has received many awards for his efforts to publicize science. In 2002 he was elected an International Fellow of The Explorers Club and in 2006 Cox received the British Association Lord Kelvin Award for this work. A frequent lecturer, he was keynote speaker at the Australian Science Festival in 2006.

Cox is also known for his involvement in science programmes for BBC radio and television, including In Einstein's Shadow,[9] the BBC Horizon series[10] ("Large Hadron Collider and the Big Bang", "What On Earth Is Wrong With Gravity," "Do You Know What Time It Is?" and "Can We Make a Star on Earth?") and for voiceovers on the BBC's Bitesize revision programs. Cox was the science advisor for the sci-fi film Sunshine and was featured on the Discovery Channel special Megaworld: Switzerland. He also gives regular lectures on the LHC.

Cox is a regular contributor on the BBC6Music Breakfast Show with Shaun Keaveny, with a weekly feature.

Cox appeared on the July 24, 2009 episode of Robert Llewellyns CarPool podcast series.[11] Cox gave a talk at TAM London, on October 3 2009. He spoke about the importance of curiosity-driven science, whilst drawing derision to a science organisation's presentation slide, giving "the Wow Factor" as a valid reason. Cox contrasted this "Wow Factor" with startling pictures: Carl Sagan's famous Pale Blue Dot, and Earthrise from the moon. He explained that the higher the energy, i.e. the higher the temperature, the further back in time you go, and the simpler the universe and the laws that describe it become. He spoke of the three generations of matter, the four fundamental forces, and attempts to combine them. He spoke also of the Grand Unified Theory, stating that if supersymmetry is correct, gravity unites with the other three fundamental forces at energies of 1019 GeV, which have not been reached since 10-43 seconds after the big bang.

Cox appeared on The Colbert Report on Oct. 28th 2009 to promote his book "Why Does E=mc²?"

On Monday 30th November 2009 Cox started a radio show on BBC radio 4 entitled 'The infinite monkey cage' airing at 4.30pm. He is the co-host with comedian Robin Ince. So far guests have included comedian Dara Ó Briain and Dr Alice Roberts of the BBC show 'The incredible human journey'.

[edit] References

  1. ^ British Council, UK Achiever - Brian Cox, Issue 14, Volume 7, retrieved 6 September 2008
  2. ^ Oldham Advertiser, "Things have only got better for Brian", 11 April 2007, retrieved 6 September 2008
  3. ^ FP420 R&D Project, FP420, 16 October 2007, retrieved 6 September 2008
  4. ^ Hunt-Grubbe, Charlotte, "A life in the day: Dr Brian Cox", Sunday Times, 24 February 2008, retrieved 6 September 2008
  5. ^ "Brian Cox profile". http://www.educationuk.org/pls/hot_bc/page_pls_user_article?x=841102665408&y=0&a=0&d=1399. 
  6. ^ Courier Mail, "Rock star's new frontier"[dead link], 9 August 2006, unable to retrieve on 6 September 2008
  7. ^ everyHit.com, UK top 40 hit database (search result for D:Ream), done 6 September 2008
  8. ^ apolloschildren.com, Professor Brian Cox (with downloadable postscript file), retrieved 6 September 2008
  9. ^ bbc.co.uk, In Einstein's shadow, January 2005, retrieved 6 September 2008
  10. ^ Sue Rider Management, Professor Brian Cox, retrieved 6 September 2008
  11. ^ CarPool, Brian Cox on CarPool, 24 July 2009, retrieved 19 September 2009

[edit] External links

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