Joseph Silk facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joseph Silk
|
|
|---|---|
Silk in 2015
|
|
| Born | 3 December 1942 London, England
|
| Citizenship | UK United States |
| Alma mater | Clare College, Cambridge University of Manchester Harvard University |
| Awards | Royal Society Bakerian Medal (2007) Balzan Prize (2011) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2019) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cosmology |
| Institutions | Institut d'astrophysique de Paris University of Oxford University of California, Berkeley Johns Hopkins University |
| Doctoral students | Max Tegmark |
Joseph Ivor Silk is a brilliant scientist from both Britain and America. He was born on December 3, 1942. He studies space and the universe, especially how it all began and how galaxies formed.
From 1999 to 2011, he was a very important professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford. He is also a special member of New College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a group of top scientists. In 2011, he won a big award called the Balzan Prize for his amazing work on the early universe. Professor Silk has given over 200 talks about how galaxies form and how the universe works.
Joseph Silk's Life and Education
Joseph Silk went to school at Tottenham County School in London. After that, he studied Math at the University of Cambridge. He then learned about Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. His teacher there was Roger Jennison.
He earned his PhD in Astronomy from Harvard University in 1968. His advisor was David Layzer. Joseph Silk started working at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1970. By 1978, he became a professor there.
After almost 30 years at Berkeley, he moved back to the UK in 1999. He became the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford. Today, he is a Physics Professor in Paris, France. He also teaches Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in the US. From 2015 to 2019, he was the Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College.
What is Silk Damping?
Joseph Silk is famous for something called Silk damping. This is a scientific idea about the Cosmic microwave background radiation. The cosmic microwave background is like an echo from the very early universe. It's the oldest light we can see!
Scientists study tiny differences in this light. These differences are caused by two main things. One is called acoustic oscillations, which are like sound waves in the early universe. The other is diffusion damping, also known as Silk damping.
Silk damping happens because tiny particles in the early universe spread out. This spreading smooths out some of the small differences in the cosmic microwave background. It's like ripples in water slowly fading away. Joseph Silk helped us understand this important process.
Awards and Recognitions
Joseph Silk has received many important awards for his work:
- 1972 and 1974: Sloan Research Fellowship
- 1975: Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1995: Fellow of the American Physical Society
- 1999: Fellow of the Royal Society
- 2007: Included in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 2008: Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
- 2011: Balzan Prize for his work on the early universe
- 2014: Member of the US National Academy of Sciences
- 2018: Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
- 2019: Gruber Prize in Cosmology with Nicholas Kaiser. They won for their big contributions to how the universe's structure formed and how we study Dark matter.
- 2020: Fellow of the American Astronomical Society
- 2020: Nick Kylafis Lecturer
