Carlos Frenk facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carlos Frenk
|
|
|---|---|
Frenk in 2012
|
|
| Born |
Carlos Silvestre Frenk
27 October 1951 |
| Citizenship | British, German and Mexican |
| Alma mater | University of Mexico (BSc) University of Cambridge (PhD) |
| Known for | Navarro–Frenk–White profile |
| Spouse(s) | Dr Susan Frenk |
| Children | 2 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Institutions | Durham University University of Sussex University of California, Santa Barbara University of California, Berkeley |
| Thesis | Globular clusters in the galaxy and in the Large Magellanic Cloud (1981) |
| Doctoral advisor | Bernard J. T. Jones |
| Doctoral students | Ben Moore Gillian Wilson |
Carlos Silvestre Frenk (born 27 October 1951) is a famous Mexican-British scientist who studies the universe. He is known as a cosmologist. He uses powerful computer simulations to understand how galaxies and the universe itself came to be.
Carlos Frenk has written over 500 scientific papers. He is one of the most important and often-quoted authors in astronomy. He helped prove the idea of cold dark matter using computer models. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004, which is a big honor for scientists. He has won many awards and is often thought of as a possible winner for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Carlos Frenk was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He was the oldest of six children. His father was a German Jewish doctor who came to Mexico to escape problems before World War II. His mother was a Mexican-Spanish pianist. When he was young, Carlos was good at basketball and even played semi-professionally. He also loved mathematics.
Carlos first studied engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. But he later changed to Theoretical Physics. He finished his degree in 1976 and got the highest grades in his class, winning the Gabino Barreda Medal.
He visited Italy and heard a lecture by Martin Rees, a professor from the University of Cambridge. Martin Rees encouraged him to study at Cambridge. Carlos decided to go there instead of Caltech. He got a scholarship and started studying at Cambridge in 1977.
He stayed at Cambridge for his PhD. His research was about the Milky Way, our home galaxy. At that time, the idea of dark matter was very new. But Carlos believed that the Milky Way was surrounded by this "embedded" dark matter. He earned his PhD in astronomy in 1981.
At Cambridge, Carlos decided to focus on cosmology because he felt there were many "exciting problems" to solve in that field. He met Simon White there, who would become a key partner in his research.
Career and Research
Starting His Scientific Journey
After Cambridge, Carlos Frenk worked as a researcher at the University of California. He was at Berkeley from 1981 to 1983. Then he moved to Santa Barbara from 1983 to 1984. He later returned to the United Kingdom and worked at Sussex University from 1984 to 1985.
The Famous 'Gang of Four'
While at Berkeley, Carlos Frenk teamed up with Marc Davis and Simon White. They wanted to use computers to study the early universe. This was a very new idea back then! They needed more help, so they asked George Efstathiou to join them.
These four scientists – Davis, White, Efstathiou, and Frenk – became known as the 'Gang of Four'. They worked on a series of important papers. They were especially interested in the idea that dark matter particles were "cold." They found that dark matter could not be made of neutrinos.
In 1985, they published their most important paper. It showed the results of the first computer simulations of cold dark matter. Their research helped prove that the "cold dark matter theory" was correct for how galaxies and other large structures in the universe formed. Even though some scientists disagreed at first, their ideas eventually became widely accepted in cosmology.
Moving to Durham University
In 1986, Carlos Frenk became a lecturer at Durham University. He helped build up the astronomy research there. It was hard at first because he needed powerful computers for his work, and they were hard to get. He eventually got a special computer called a MicroVAX.
Carlos was promoted to a full Professor in 1993. During this time, he turned down job offers from other countries to stay at Durham.
Even with their important papers, the ideas of Frenk and White were not fully accepted by everyone. Some scientists had different ideas, like the Modified Newtonian dynamics theory. But in 1993, new evidence from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite supported Frenk and White's work.
Later, Carlos and Simon White, who was then at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, joined with other scientists to form the Virgo Consortium. This group allowed them to use some of the best supercomputers in the world.
By the mid-1990s, the "cold dark matter" idea was very strong. Scientists then started looking at the shapes of these dark matter "halos" around galaxies.
In 1996 and 1997, Carlos Frenk, Simon White, and Julio Navarro published amazing results. They created the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. This is a model that describes how dark matter is spread out in these halos. It helps scientists understand the size and density of dark matter halos. This model is still used a lot today because it helps us measure important things about our universe, like how much matter it contains.
-
This graph compares the NFW profile with another model.
-
Julio Navarro, a key partner in the NFW profile work.
From 2001 to Today
.jpg)
In 2001, Carlos Frenk became the first Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics at Durham University. He also became the Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) when it was created in 2001. He led the ICC until 2020.
In 2005, as part of the Virgo Consortium, Carlos helped create the Millennium Run. This was the biggest and most realistic computer simulation of the universe ever done at that time. It took 28 days to complete! Carlos likes to call his simulation work "cosmic cookery." He jokes that he and his team have "filing cabinets" full of failed universes.
By 2008, Carlos Frenk was one of the top 10 most quoted astronomers in the world. In 2020, he was recognized for his highly-cited research, which was called "Nobel Class." Carlos, along with Julio Navarro and Simon White, is often mentioned as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Personal Life
Carlos Frenk is married to Dr. Susan Frenk. She teaches Spanish and Latin American literature and is the head of St Aidan's College at Durham University. They have two sons.
Carlos is also very interested in architecture, which is how buildings are designed. He was inspired by the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. When he first came to Britain, he thought the university buildings were "dark" and "claustrophobic." Because of this, he has helped design new buildings at Durham University.
Awards and Recognition
Carlos Frenk has received many important awards for his work:
- He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2004.
- He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2017 for his work in cosmology and for sharing science with the public.
- He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014.
- Other awards include the Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2011), the Max Born Prize (2017), the Dirac Medal and Prize (2020), and the Rumford Medal (2021).
Media Appearances
Carlos Frenk has appeared on many TV and radio shows to talk about science. He was interviewed by Kirsty Young for the radio show Desert Island Discs in 2018. He has also been on BBC programs like Horizon, The Sky at Night, and The Today Programme, explaining complex ideas about the universe to a wider audience.
Images for kids
-
Frenk in 2012
