Profile

I am a theoretical physicist, so that means that instead of doing experiments I work on the theories that lie behind things. For example, Peter Higgs who has just won the Nobel Prize for Physics thought up the idea of his famous particle, the Higgs Boson, in the 1960’s and it’s taken till 2012 to actually discover the particle. That’s the dream for a theorist.

My own area of interest is how to take all the current theories and put them together in one single framework. This means taking Einstein’s theory of gravity that describes the universe on large scales and putting it together with quantum theory that describes the universe on small scales. That’s a very hard job because they don’t easily go together. There are 2 places in the universe where it’s important to do this to understand what’s going on, firstly at the big bang when the universe was tiny and very hot and secondly inside black holes. Black holes are fascinating because not only are they a place where our current theories are struggling to work but now we know that the universe is full of them. For instance there’s one at the centre of our own galaxy.

I spend some of my time teaching physics to university students.

I spend a lot of time reading the latest work on-line .

I spend a lot of time discussing physics with my work colleagues, often over email or Skype.

I spend a lot of time drinking coffee, chatting about physics or thinking.

I spend some time writing up work usually with other people.

Unfortunately I have to spend some time on committees for the university or for the research councils.

When I can I travel to give seminars or attend conferences often in some nice places!