Brian David Josephson

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Brian David Josephson bigraphy, stories - Nobel Laureate in Physics

Brian David Josephson : biography

04 January 1940 –

Brian David Josephson, FRS

(born 4 January 1940) is a Welsh physicist. He became a Nobel Prize laureate in 1973 for the prediction of the eponymous Josephson effect. 

As of late 2007, he was a retired professor at the University of Cambridge, where he is the head of the Mind–Matter Unification Project in the Theory of Condensed Matter (TCM) research group. He is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Awards and medals

Awards

  • New Scientist 1969
  • Research Corporation 1969
  • Fritz London Memorial Prize, 1970
  • Nobel Prize for Physics 1973

Medals

  • Guthrie Medal (Institute of Physics) 1972
  • van der Pol 1972
  • Elliott Cresson Medal (Franklin Institute) 1972
  • Hughes (Royal Society) 1972
  • Holweck Prize (Institute of Physics and French Institute of Physics) 1972
  • Faraday (Institution of Electrical Engineers) 1982
  • Sir George Thomson (Institute of Measurement and Control) 1984
  • Medal of the town of Marseilles 2004

Wikipedia presence

Brian Josephson writes from time to time on Wikipedia.

Research

Josephson effect

Josephson is best known for his pioneering theoretical work on superconductivity, earning him a 1/2 share of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Specifically, it was awarded 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", which led to the invention of the Josephson junction. These junctions are key components in devices used to make highly sensitive measurements in magnetic fields. Further use for his discoveries was realised by researchers at IBM who, by 1980, had assembled an experimental computer switch structure, which would permit switching speeds from 10 to 100 times faster than those possible with conventional silicon-based chips, vastly increasing data processing capabilities. 

Mind–Matter Unification Project

Josephson directed the Mind–Matter Unification Project, which he describes as: "a project concerned primarily with the attempt to understand, from the viewpoint of the theoretical physicist, what may loosely be characterised as intelligent processes in nature, associated with brain function or with some other natural process".

More generally, the research involves how the brain works, investigating topics such as language and consciousness, and pondering the fundamental connections between music and the mind. It is based on the belief that quantum mechanics is not the ultimate theory of nature. He maintains that "Quantum theory is not a complete picture of nature even though it is correct in its own domain". He believes ideas such as complementarity in physics may also apply to biology. 

Despite his retirement Josephson continues to be active within the Mind-Matter Unification project. Among his aims is to find mechanisms behind phenomena such as the possibility that organisms can learn to bias the statistics of supposedly random physical processes through having a better understanding of its patterns than non-living matter.

Parapsychology

Josephson is one of the more well-known scientists who say that parapsychological phenomena may be real, and is also interested in the possibility that Eastern mysticism may have relevance to scientific understanding. He has said that one of his guiding principles has been nullius in verba (take nobody’s word, the motto of the Royal Society), saying that "if scientists as a whole denounce an idea, this should not necessarily be taken as proof that the said idea is absurd; rather, one should examine carefully the alleged grounds for such opinions and judge how well these stand up to detailed scrutiny."

In 2001 Josephson’s views on the paranormal were under the spotlight when he wrote about them in a booklet to accompany six special stamps to honour the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prize. The Royal Mail had sent Josephson a request to write a small article about their award and the implication of research in their field they could use in conjunction with the special Nobel Centenary stamp issue. He wrote the following: "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.