Richard A. Muller

Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944 in New York, New York, USA) is an American physicist who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Career

Muller obtained an A.B. degree at Columbia University (New York) and a Ph.D. degree in physics from University of California, Berkeley. Muller began his career as a graduate student under Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez doing particle physics experiments and working with bubble chambers. During his early years he also helped to cocreate accelerator mass spectroscopy and made some of the first measurements of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background.

Subsequently, Muller branched out into other areas of science, and in particular the Earth sciences. His work has included attempting to understand the ice ages, dynamics at the core-mantle boundary, patterns of extinction and biodiversity through time, and the processes associated with impact cratering. One of his most well known proposals is the Nemesis hypothesis suggesting that the Sun could have an as yet undetected companion dwarf star, whose perturbations of the Oort cloud and subsequent effects on the flux of comets entering the inner Solar System could explain an apparent 26 million year periodicity in extinction events.

Positions and recognition

Muller is a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group, which brings together prominent scientists as consultants for the United States Department of Defense.

Muller explaining antimatter

He was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 1982. He also received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation "for highly original and innovative research which has led to important discoveries and inventions in diverse areas of physics, including astrophysics, radioisotope dating, and optics."

Muller is a founder and the current chairperson of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which intends to provide an independent analysis of the Earth's surface temperature records.

In 1999, he received a distinguished teaching award from UC Berkeley. His "Physics for Future Presidents" series of lectures, in which Muller teaches a synopsis of modern qualitative (i.e. without resorting to complicated math) physics, has been released publicly on YouTube by UC Berkeley and has been published in book form. It has been one of the most highly regarded courses at Berkeley. In December 2009, Muller officially retired from teaching the course, although he still occasionally gives guest lectures.

MIT Technology Review

For several years, he was a monthly columnist with MIT's Technology Review. In his August 2003 column on the polygraph machine used in lie detection examinations, Muller asserted that "the polygraph procedure has an accuracy between 80 and 95 percent." The National Academy of Sciences found that there is "little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy."

In a 2004 article, Muller supported the findings of Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in which they criticized the research, led by Michael E. Mann, which produced the "hockey stick graph." In response, Mann criticized Muller on his blog RealClimate. Marcel Crok, a reporter for the Dutch popular science magazine Natuurwetenschap & Techniek (now called NWT Magazine), later did a story on the incident.

Other work

Muller is President and Chief Scientist of Muller & Associates, an international consulting group specializing in energy-related issues.

Muller is married to architect Rosemary Muller.

Muller demos a Van de Graaff generator

Published books

• Nemesis: The Death Star (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) ISBN 0-7493-0465-0
• The Three Big Bangs: Comet Crashes, Exploding Stars, and the Creation of the Universe (with coauthor Phil Dauber, Addison/Wesley 1996) ISBN 0-201-15495-1
• Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes: data, spectral analysis, and mechanisms (with coauthor Gordon MacDonald, 2002) ISBN 3-540-43779-7
• The Sins of Jesus (a historical novel, Auravision Publishing 1999) ISBN 0-9672765-1-9
• Physics for Future Presidents (Custom Publishing, 2006) ISBN 1-4266-2459-X free excerpts)
• The Instant Physicist: An Illustrated Guide (W.W. Norton 2010) ISBN 978-0393078268

External links

• Muller's Website
• PhysicsForFuturePresidents.com (book website)
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents - Spring 2006 (streamable videos of Dr. Muller's introductionary physics course.)
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents, Berkeley webcast, Winter 2006
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents, Berkeley webcast, Spring 2007
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents, Berkeley webcast, Spring 2008
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents, Berkeley webcast, Fall 2009
• Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents, Class website containing old and current webcasts.
• "Naked Copenhagen: Temperature is increasingly at the mercy of the developing world", op-ed by Muller, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12, 2009.
• Berkeley scientists' climate data review puts them at center of national debate: The head of the study, a longtime critic of the global warming consensus, will testify before a House panel. Leading climate scientists worry that the project, funded in part by an petroleum (oil) billionaire's foundation, has an agenda.; note, see Political activities of the Koch family for oil billionaires Koch family, March 31, 2011.
• Critics' review unexpectedly supports scientific consensus on global warming: A UC Berkeley team's preliminary findings in a review of temperature data confirm global warming studies, see related Talk:Tea Party movement and fossil fuel industry financers April 4, 2011
• "I Stick to Science": Why Richard A. Muller wouldn't tell House climate skeptics what they wanted to hear by Michael D. Lemonick May 25, 2011 Scientific American
• ClimateProgress.org reprint of Scientific American interview
• Statement to the Committee on Science, Space and Technology of the United States House of Representatives, see United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology March 31, 2011