Neil Geoffrey Turok holds the Chair of Mathematical Physics (1967) at Cambridge University. He was born in 1958 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of Mary and Ben Turok, activists in the anti-apartheid movement and the African National Congress. Turok #1 by Valiant Comics For the video game series see Turok video games; for the cosmologist with this surname, see Neil Turok. ... Turok is a first-person shooter video game series, set in a primitive world inhabited by dinosaurs and other creatures. ... The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with one of the most selective sets of entry requirements in the United Kingdom. ... Ben Turok is a former apartheid activist and current South African member of parliament. ... For political parties with similar names in other countries, see Northern Rhodesian African National Congress and Zambian African National Congress. ...

After graduating from Churchill College, Cambridge, Neil gained his doctorate from Imperial College, London, under the supervision of Professor David Olive, one of the inventors of superstring theory. After a postdoctoral post at Santa Barbara, he was an associate scientist at Fermilab, Chicago. In 1992 he was awarded the James Clerk Maxwell medal of the Institute of Physics for his contributions to theoretical physics. In 1994 he was appointed Professor of Physics at Princeton University, and before moving to his current position in 1997. Full name Churchill College Motto Forward Named after Sir Winston Churchill Previous names - Established 1966 Sister College Trinity College Master Sir John Boyd Location Storeys Way Undergraduates 210 Graduates 440 Homepage Boatclub Churchill College Churchill College was founded in 1960 as the national and commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill. ... Royal School of Mines Entrance Imperial College London is a college of the University of London which focuses on science and technology, and is located in South Kensington in London. ... Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. ... Aerial view of the Fermilab site. ... James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist from Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. His most significant achievement was aggregating a set of equations in electricity, magnetism and inductance — eponymously named Maxwells equations — including an important modification (extension) of the Ampères... The Institute of Physics (IOP) is Britain and Irelands main professional body for physicists. ... Princeton University is a private coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ...

Turok has worked in a number of areas of mathematical physics and early universe physics, focusing on observational tests of fundamental physics in cosmology. In the early 90's his group showed how the polarisation and temperature anisotropies of the cosmic background radiation would be correlated, a prediction which has been confirmed in detail by recent precision measurements by the WMAP satellite. They also developed a key test for the presence of a cosmological constant, also recently confirmed. Turok and collaborators developed the theory of open inflation. With Stephen Hawking, he later developed the so-called Hawking-Turok instanton solutions which, according to the no-boundary proposal of Hawking and James Hartle, can describe the birth of an inflationary universe. This article is about the physics subject. ... When any patch of the sky is observed where no individual sources can be discerned, and the effects of interplanetary dust, and interstellar matter are taken into account, there is still radiation. ... Artist depiction of the WMAP satellite at the L2 point The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is a NASA satellite whose mission is to survey the sky to measure the temperature of the radiant heat left over from the Big Bang. ... In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ) was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe. ... Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. ... James Hartle is an American physicist. ... Inflation is the idea—first proposed by Alan Guth (1981)—that the nascent universe passed through a phase of exponential expansion (the inflationary epoch) that was driven by a negative pressure vacuum energy density. ...

Most recently, with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton, Turok has been developing a cyclic model for the universe, in which the big bang is explained as a collision between two "brane-worlds" in M theory. The predictions of this model are in agreement with current cosmological data, but there are interesting differences with the predictions of cosmological inflation which will be probed by future experiments. In 2006, Steinhardt and Turok showed how the cyclic model could naturally incorporate a mechanism for relaxing the cosmological constant to very small values, consistent with current observations. Steinhardt and Turok co-authored the recent popular science book "The Endless Universe". Paul J. Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University and a professor of theoretical physics. ... The cyclic model is a brane cosmology model of the creation of the universe, derived from the earlier ekpyrotic model. ... For a less technical and generally accessible introduction to the topic, see Introduction to M-theory. ... In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ) was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe. ...

In 2003, Professor Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Muizenberg, a postgraduate educational centre supporting the development of mathematics and science across the African continent. The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is an educational institute in Muizenberg, South Africa, established in 2003. ... Changing huts for bathers on the beach at Muizenberg. ...

He was awarded the 2008 TED (conference) award for his work in mathematical physics and his work through the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Muizenberg.^[1] TED (Technology Entertainment Design),TED talks, TEDtalks, or TED Global is a forum for revolutionary ideas held annually in Monterey, California and recently in other cities around the world. ... The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is an educational institute in Muizenberg, South Africa, established in 2003. ... Changing huts for bathers on the beach at Muizenberg. ...

External links

• Neil Turok's home page
• African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

References