Geoffrey Ronald Burbidge FRS (24 September 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an English astronomy professor, most recently at the University of California, San Diego. He was married to astrophysicist Dr. Margaret Burbidge.
Contents |
He first attended the University of Bristol to study history, but changed to physics. He went to London and received his PhD from University College London in 1951.
In this period, he met Margaret Peachey and they married in 1948.[1]
The Burbidges worked at Harvard, the University of Chicago and Cambridge University, before Margaret obtained work at the California Institute of Technology, while Geoffrey worked at the Mount Wilson Observatory and Palomar Observatory.
They obtained positions at the University of California, San Diego, in 1962.
He was the Director of Kitt Peak National Observatory from 1978 to 1984.[1]
In 1957 he and his wife were co-authors, together with William Fowler, the American physicist, and Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer, 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. This paper described the process of stars burning lighter elements into successively heavier atoms which were then expelled to form other structures in the universe, including planets.[1]
In recent years Burbidge was known mostly for his alternative cosmology "quasi-steady state theory", which contradicts the Big Bang theory.[2]
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.
Awards
Named after him