Geoffrey Burbidge

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Geoffrey Ronald Burbidge (born September 24, 1925) is a British-American physics professor in the University of California, San Diego. He is the husband of Margaret Burbidge.

In 1957 he and his wife were co-authors, together with Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer, and William Fowler, the American physicist, of a famous paper on stellar nucleosynthesis, which was referred to as the B²FH paper, after the initials of the surnames of the four authors. Burbidge is known mostly for his alternative cosmology theory, which contradicts the Big Bang theory.

According to Burbidge, the universe is oscillatory and as such expands and contracts periodically over infinite time. This theory, due to its controversial nature, has brought a certain amount of fame (or even infamy) to Burbidge.

[edit] Honors

Awards

• Warner Prize, with his wife (1959)
• Bruce Medal (1999)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2005)

Named after him

• Asteroid 11753 Geoffburbidge

[edit] External links

• Bruce Medal page
• Geoffrey Burbidge personal page