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* Sir George Thomson (Institute of Measurement and Control), 1984<ref name="Nobel_CV" /> |
* Sir George Thomson (Institute of Measurement and Control), 1984<ref name="Nobel_CV" /> |
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==Selected articles== |
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*"We Think That We Think Clearly, But That's Only Because We Don't Think Clearly," in Patrick Colm Hogan, Lalita Pandit (eds.), ''Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003, [http://books.google.com/books?id=lyr2gZZnWl8C&pg=PA107 p. 107ff]. |
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*[http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0312012 "String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal"], arXiv, physics.gen-ph, 2 December 2003. |
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*[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264701001733 "Beyond quantum theory: A realist psycho-biological interpretation of reality’ revisited"], ''Biosystems'', 64(1–3), January 2002, pp. 43–45. |
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*[http://physicsworldarchive.iop.org/index.cfm?action=summary&doc=13%2F10%2Fphwv13i10a21%40pwa-xml&qt= "Positive bias to paranormal claims"], ''Physics World'', October 2000. |
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*[http://physicsworldarchive.iop.org/index.cfm?action=summary&doc=12%2F2%2Fphwv12i2a19%40pwa-xml&qt=%28Brian%20Josephson%20%3Cin%3E%20%28name%29%29 "What is truth?], ''Physics World'', February 1999. |
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*[http://physicsworldarchive.iop.org/index.cfm?action=summary&doc=10%2F9%2Fphwv10i9a14%40pwa-xml&qt=%28Brian%20Josephson%20%3Cin%3E%20%28name%29%29 "Skeptics cornered"], ''Physics World'', September 1997. |
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*[http://physicsworldarchive.iop.org/index.cfm?action=summary&doc=9%2F12%2Fphwv9i12a29%40pwa-xml&qt=%28Brian%20Josephson%20%3Cin%3E%20%28name%29%29 "Consciously avoiding the X-factor"], ''Physics World'', December 1996. |
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*with Jessica Utts, [http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/tucson.html "The Paranormal: The Evidence and its Implications for Consciousness"], ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', 5 April 1996. |
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*with Colm Wall and Anthony Clark, [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619755.600-light-barrier.html "Light Barrier"], ''New Scientist'', 29 April 1995. |
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*[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14419566.400-awkward-eclipse.html "Awkward Eclipse"], ''New Scientist'', 17 December 1994. |
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*with Beverly A. Rubik, [[David Fontana]] & David Lorimer, [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v358/n6388/abs/358618a0.html "Defining consciousness"], ''Nature'', 358(618), 20 August 1992. |
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*with Beverly A. Rubik, [http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/athens.pdf "The challenge of consciousness research"], ''Frontier Perspectives'', 1992. |
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*with Fotini Pallikari-Viras, [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01889532#page-1 "Biological Utilization of Quantum Nonlocality"], ''Foundations of Physics'', 21(2), 1991, pp. 197–207 (also available [http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html here]). |
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*with M. Conrad and D. Home, "Beyond quantum theory: A realist psycho-biological interpretation of physical reality," in Alwyn van der Merwe, Franco Selleri, Gino Tarozzi (eds.), ''Microphysical Reality and Quantum Formalism'', Springer, 1987, [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TufYGxe4464C&oi=fnd&pg=PA285 p. 285ff]. |
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*with H. M. Hauser, [http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1663548&show=abstract "Multistage Acquisition of Intelligent Behaviour"], ''Kybernetes'', 10(1), 1981. |
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*[ftp://162.105.205.230/pub/Books/NobelLecturePhysics/1973josephson.pdf "The Discovery of Tunnelling Supercurrents"], ''Science'', Nobel lecture, 12 December 1973. |
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*[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1965AdPhy..14..419J "Supercurrents through Barriers"], ''Advances in Physics'', 14(56), 1965, pp. 419–451. |
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*[http://ulmss-newton.lib.cam.ac.uk/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=35254 ''Non-linear conduction in superconductors''], (PhD thesis), University of Cambridge, December 1964. |
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*[http://rmp.aps.org/abstract/RMP/v36/i1/p216_1 "Coupled Superconductors"], ''Review of Modern Physics'', 36(1), 1964, pp. 216–220. |
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*[http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/243916 "The Relativistic Shift in the Mössbauer Effect and Coupled Superconductors"], submitted for Trinity College fellowship, 1962. |
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*[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0031916362913690 "Possible new effects in superconductive tunnelling"], ''Physics Letters'', 1(7), 1 July 1962, pp. 251–253. |
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*[http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/4170593 "Temperature-dependent shift of gamma rays emitted by a solid"], ''Physical Review Letters'', 4, 1 April 1960. |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
Revision as of 09:38, 20 December 2013
Brian Josephson | |
---|---|
photograph | |
Born | |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge BA, MA (1960, 1964) PhD (1964) |
Known for | Condensed matter physics, Josephson effect |
Spouse | Carol Anne Olivier (m. 1976; 1 child)[3] |
Awards | Nobel Prize for Physics (1973) |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Trinity College, Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory |
Thesis | Non-linear conduction in superconductors[1] |
Academic advisors | Brian Pippard |
Website | Homepage Cavendish Laboratory |
Brian David Josephson, FRS (born 4 January 1940), is a Welsh theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge.[4] He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for his prediction of the eponymous Josephson effect.[5]
Josephson has spent his academic career at Cambridge, where he has been a fellow of Trinity College since 1962.[5] He is director of the Mind–Matter Unification Project of the Theory of Condensed Matter group at the university's Cavendish Laboratory.[6]
Some of Josephson's research, in areas such as parapsychology, homeopathy and cold fusion, has fallen outside the parameters of mainstream science, and as a consequence has attracted criticism from fellow physicists.[5]
Education
Josephson was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Jewish parents, Mimi (Weisbard) and Abraham Josephson.[3] He attended Cardiff High School, then Trinity College, Cambridge. He was known at Cambridge as a brilliant student; American physicist Philip Anderson, also a Nobel Prize winner, recalled that having him in a class was "a disconcerting experience for a lecturer, I can assure you, because everything had to be right or he would come up and explain it to me after class."[7]
According to one eminent physicist speaking to Edwin Cartlidge of Physics World, Josephson wrote several papers important enough to assure him a place in the history of physics even without his discovery of the Josephson effect. While still an undergraduate, he published a paper in which, Cartlidge wrote, he calculated "a thermal correction to the Mössbauer effect that reconciled previously different measurements of gravitational red shifts reported by teams in the US and UK."[8] He graduated in 1960 and was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1962.[5] He obtained his PhD in 1964, also from Cambridge, for a thesis entitled Non-linear conduction in superconductors.[1]
Career
![photograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Cmglee_Cambridge_Trinity_College_Neviles_Court.jpg/250px-Cmglee_Cambridge_Trinity_College_Neviles_Court.jpg)
Josephson moved to the United States in 1964 to take a position as research assistant professor at the University of Illinois. He returned to Cambridge in 1967 as an assistant director of research at the Cavendish Laboratory. He has been a member of the Theory of Condensed Matter (TCM) Group, a theoretical physics group at the Cavendish Laboratory, for much of his career.[9] He became a reader in physics in 1972 and a full professor in 1974, a position he held until he retired in 2007.[10]
In 1970 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.[5] He was also awarded a National Science Foundation Senior Foreign Scientist Fellowship at Cornell University that year, and honorary doctorates by the University of Wales in 1974 and the University of Exeter in 1983. He held several visiting professorships during the 1980s, including at Wayne State University in 1983, the Indian Institute of Science in 1984, and the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1987.[11] He is a former member of the advisory and editorial board of Neuroquantology.[12]
Research
Josephson effect, Nobel Prize
Josephson is best known for his pioneering theoretical work on superconductivity.[13] He was a 22-year-old PhD student when he carried out the work that later won him the Nobel Prize in Physics. According to Cartlidge, Josephson "predicted that a superconducting current can tunnel through an insulating junction, even when there is no voltage across it, and that the current will oscillate at a well-defined frequency when a voltage is applied."[8] This became known as the Josephson effect.[14] His calculations were published in Physics Letters in July 1962, and were confirmed by Philip Anderson and John Rowell of Bell Labs in their paper, "Probable Observation of the Josephson Superconducting Tunneling Effect," submitted to Physical Review Letters in January 1963.[15]
Josephson's work led to the invention of the Josephson junction. Gabrielle Walker writes in New Scientist that a Josephson junction is "a sandwich of an insulating layer between two superconducting layers. In the junction, electrons can cheat and 'tunnel' through the insulator to produce a current. This current is very sensitive to magnetic fields, so the junction can be used as a switch that is turned on an off by a magnetic field. Alternatively, it can act as a magnetic detector by monitoring the amount of current. Such detectors are called superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs."[16] IBM used Josephson's discovery to build a computer switch structure with switching speeds up to 100 times faster than with conventional chips.[5]
Josephson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his "theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects." He shared the prize with Japanese physicist Leo Esaki and Norwegian-American physicist Ivar Giaever, who jointly received 1/2 the award for their experimental work on tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors.[17] Unusually, along with Josephson, neither Esaki nor Giaever held professorships at the time of the award.[18]
Mind–Matter Unification Project, parapsychology
![photograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/CavendishLab.jpg/250px-CavendishLab.jpg)
Josephson became interested in the late 1960s in the study of cognitive science and the mind–body problem.[19] He is director of the Mind–Matter Unification Project of the Theory of Condensed Matter group at the Cavendish Laboratory, a theoretical research project that he describes as an attempt to understand "what may loosely be characterised as intelligent processes in nature, associated with brain function or with some other natural process."[6] He has practised Transcendental Meditation since the 1970s,[8] and is interested in the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism. Guided by the principle nullius in verba ("take nobody's word," the motto of the Royal Society), he is one of the few scientists to argue that parapsychological phenomena may be real.[6]
In a 1991 paper, "Biological Utilization of Quantum Nonlocality," he and co-author Fotini Pallikara-Viras proposed that explanations for both psychokinesis and telepathy might be found in quantum physics.[20] Josephson argues that quantum mechanics is "not a complete picture of nature even though it is correct in its own domain." He believes that ideas such as complementarity in physics may also apply to biology.[21] He told Physics World: "Future science will consider quantum mechanics as the phenomenology of particular kinds of organised complex system. Quantum entanglement would be one manifestation of such organisation, paranormal phenomena another. As yet, our understanding of such matters is very qualitative, but application of the skills of the physicist to such situations can be expected to yield more precise theories in due course."[8]
Josephson wrote in 2005 that Trinity College had a strong tradition of interest in the paranormal, and that the firsthand contact he had there with the ideas and their proponents meant that he did not dismiss them out of hand. Arguing that the outright rejection of parapsychology is not a matter of science, but of emotion, he has compared the situation of parapsychology to that of Alfred Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift. Wegener proposed this in 1912 to explain several otherwise inexplicable observations, including the close fit of the South American and African continents, and some coincidences in the fossil record. There was resistance to the idea from the scientific community, until further evidence led to its acceptance after Wegener's death in 1930.[22]
Josephson's views on parapsychology came under the spotlight in 2001, when he was commissioned by the Royal Mail in the UK to write material for a booklet accompanying six stamps issued in honour of the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize.[23] He wrote:
Physicists attempt to reduce the complexity of nature to a single unifying theory, of which the most successful and universal, the quantum theory, has been associated with several Nobel prizes, for example those to Dirac and Heisenberg. Max Planck's original attempts a hundred years ago to explain the precise amount of energy radiated by hot bodies began a process of capturing in mathematical form a mysterious, elusive world containing 'spooky interactions at a distance', real enough however to lead to inventions such as the laser and transistor.
Quantum theory is now being fruitfully combined with theories of information and computation. These developments may lead to an explanation of processes still not understood within conventional science such as telepathy, an area where Britain is at the forefront of research.[24]
The article was criticized by several fellow physicists, including David Deutsch, a physicist at the University of Oxford, who told David McKie of the Observer that the Royal Mail had "let itself be hoodwinked into supporting ideas that are complete nonsense." According to McKie, several physicists argued that Josephson's "flirtation with transcendental meditation and the paranormal" had been "intellectually disastrous."[23]
Cold fusion, homeopathy
Josephson is a supporter of research into cold fusion, which is generally regarded as having unconvincing experimental and theoretical evidence in its favour, and is often viewed as pathological science. He wrote in the Guardian's obituary of Martin Fleischmann (1927–2012), the British chemist who pioneered research into cold fusion, that Fleischmann's work had been unfairly neglected by the scientific community.[25]
Josephson is also supportive of research into water memory, a concept that suggests a physical mechanism for the practice of homeopathy. Like cold fusion, this is largely dismissed as pseudoscience by the scientific community.[26]
Awards
- New Scientist, 1969
- Research Corporation, 1969
- Fritz London Memorial Prize, 1970
- Guthrie Medal (Institute of Physics), 1972
- van der Pol, 1972
- Elliott Cresson Medal (Franklin Institute), 1972
- Hughes Medal, 1972
- Holweck Prize (Institute of Physics and French Institute of Physics), 1972
- Nobel Prize for Physics, 1973
- Faraday (Institution of Electrical Engineers), 1982
- Sir George Thomson (Institute of Measurement and Control), 1984[11]
See also
- Fritjof Capra
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
- List of Nobel laureates in Physics
- List of physicists
- Quantum pseudo-telepathy
- Scientific phenomena named after people
References
- ^ a b "Non-linear conduction in superconductors", Newton Library Catalogue, University of Cambridge.
- ^ McDonald, Donald G. "The Nobel Laureate Versus the Graduate Student", Physics Today, July 2001 (pp. 46–51), p. 46.
- ^ a b International Who's Who, 1983-84, Europa Publications Limited, 1983, p. 672.
- ^ "Emeritus Faculty Staff List", Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d e f "Brian D. Josephson". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
- ^ a b c "Brian Josephson", homepage, Cavendish Laboratory.
- ^ Anthony J. G. Hey and Patrick Walters, The New Quantum Universe, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 154.
- ^ a b c d Edwin Cartlidge (May 2002). "Pioneer of the Paranormal". Physics World.
- ^ "Cambridge Theory of Condensed Matter group". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
- ^ "Brian D. Josephson", in Stig Lundqvist (ed.), Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971–1980, World Scientific Publishing Co., 1992.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
Nobel_CV
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Editorial team", NeuroQuantology.
- ^ Rosen, Joe. "Josephson, Brian David," Encyclopedia of Physics, Infobase Publishing, 2009, pp. 165–166.
- ^ James S. Trefil, "Josephson Effect," The Nature of Science, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003, p. 225.
- ^ Brian Josephson, "The History of the Discovery of Weakly Coupled Superconductors," in John Roche (ed.), Physicists Look Back: Studies in the History of Physics, CRC Press, 1990, p. 375.
- B.D. Josephson, "Possible new effects in superconductive tunnelling", Physics Letters, 1(7), 1 July 1962 (received 8 June 1962), pp. 251–253.
- Philip Anderson and John Rowell, "Probable Observation of the Josephson Superconducting Tunneling Effect", Physical Review Letters, 10(6), 15 March 1963 (received 11 January 1963), pp. 230–232.
- ^ Gabrielle Walker, "Technology: How SQUIDs were found where crystals meet", New Scientist, 1776, 6 July 1991.
- Also see McDonald, Donald G. "The Nobel Laureate Versus the Graduate Student", Physics Today, July 2001 (pp. 46–51), p. 51.
- Alexandre T. Filippov, "Josephson Solitons," The Versatile Soliton, Springer, 2010, p. 213ff.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
- ^ Marika Griehsel (June 2004). "Interview with Brian D. Josephson". nobelprize.org.
- ^ Alison George, "Lone voices special: Take nobody's word for it", New Scientist, 9 December 2006.
- For a general discussion of quantum theory and consciousness studies, see Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue, Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness: An Introduction, John Benjamins Publishing, 1995, p. 3ff (p. 4 for reference to Josephson).
- ^ Brian D. Josephson and Fotini Pallikari-Viras, "Biological Utilization of Quantum Nonlocality", Foundations of Physics, 21(2), 1991, pp. 197–207 (also available here).
- Michael Hanlon (2007). 10 Questions Science Can't Answer (Yet). Macmillan. pp. 165–166.
- ^ Brian Josephson (2006). "Can the Physicist's Description of Reality be Considered Complete?". YouTube. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- ^ Brian Josephson, "Foreword," in Michael A. Thalbourne and Lance Storm (eds.), Parapsychology in the Twenty-first Century: Essays on the Future of Psychical research, McFarland, 2005, pp. 1–2.
- ^ a b David McKie, "Royal Mail's Nobel guru in telepathy row", The Observer, 30 September 2001.
- ^ Brian Josephson, "Physics and the Nobel Prizes", Royal Mail, 2001.
- ^ Brian Josephson, "Martin Fleischmann obituary", The Guardian, 31 August 2012.
- Also see Brian Josephson, "Fleischmann denied due credit", Nature, 490, 37, 4 October 2012, p. 37.
- ^ Brian Josephson, "Molecule memories", letters, New Scientist, 1 November 1997.
- Brian Josephson, "Molecular memory", The Independent, 22 March 1999.
- Dana Ullman, The Homeopathic Revolution, North Atlantic Books, 2007, p. 130ff.
Further reading
- Brian Josephson's home page, University of Cambridge.
- Anderson, Philip. "How Josephson Discovered His Effect", Physics Today, November 1970. Anderson's account of Josephson's discovery; he taught the graduate course in solid-state/many-body theory in which Josephson was a student.
- Buckel, Werner and Kleiner, Reinhold. Superconductivity: Fundamentals and Applications, VCH, 1991.
- Josephson, Brian. "Quantum Mechanics, thermodynamics and transcendental meditation", courtesy of YouTube, 12 January 1975.
- Josephson, Brian. "Review: Robert Park's Voodoo Science", Times Higher Education Supplement, October 2000.
- "Brian David Josephson". Jewish Virtual Library.