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George F. R. Ellis
Professor of Applied
Mathematics,
Professor Emeritus, Mathematics Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town.
G C McVittie Visiting Professor of Astronomy, Queen Mary (
Degrees: B.Sc.(Hons) (Cape Town), B.Com.(Hons) (Cape Town); Ph.D. (Cantab).
Email: George.ellis_@_uct.ac.za
Past Positions:
Lecturer, DAMTP (
Professor
of Cosmic Physics, SISSA (
Visiting
Professor:
Honours/Positions:
National Research Foundation (NRF) A-rating.
Fellow and Past President of the Royal Society of South Africa (RSSA).
Founder Member and past Member of
Council of Academy of Science of South Africa
(ASSAf).
Past President of the International Society for General
Relativity and Gravitation.
Fellow of the University of Cape Town.
Honorary Degrees: Haverford College,
Natal University, London University (Queen Mary).
Herschel Medal (RSSA), Achievement
Award (Claude Harris Leon
Foundation),
Gold Medal: South African Association for the
Advancement of Science (S2A3),
Gold Medal (S A Mathematical
Society).
Member of the drafting team of the DACST Green Paper on Science and
Technology after President Mandela’s election, which lead to the White
Paper.
Past Member of the InterAcademy Council (
Joint Editor in Chief of the International
Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation (from January 2006). Please
see here a nice paper on reviewing.
Star of
South Africa Medal presented by President Nelson Mandela
(1999).
2004
Templeton Prize winner (presented by Prince Philip at
Fellow of the Third World Academy of Science (TWAS), 2004.
NSTF
2004 award for an individual
contribution to Science and Technology over a lifetime.
Academy of Science
of South Africa Science-for-Society gold medal
(2005).
Order of
Mapungubwe (Silver) conferred by President Thabo Mbeki
(2006).
FRS
(Fellow of the Royal Society,
Honorary
Fellow, Royal Society of South Africa
(2008)
Honorary Degree,
Teaching and research interests:
- General Relativity theory and its application to the study of the
large-scale structure of the universe (cosmology).
- The history and philosophy of cosmology.
- Complex systems and emergence of complexity.
- The human brain and behaviour.
- Science policy, developmental issues.
- Science and mathematics education.
- The relation of science to religion.
Representative publications (books):
The Large Scale Structure
of Space Time (with Stephen Hawking):
Cambridge University
Press, 1973 and reprints [4906 citations]; Russian
and Chinese editions.
Low
Income Housing Policy in South Africa, (with David Dewar):
Urban Problems Research Unit, UCT, 1979.
Flat and Curved Space Times, (with Ruth Williams):
Oxford University Press, 1988, revised 2nd edition 2000.
Bowerdean/Marion Boyars, 1993.
The
Renaissance of General Relativity and Cosmology, (with A Lanza and J
Miller): University Press,
Science Research Policy in
South Africa,
Royal Society of S Africa, 1994.
On The Moral Nature of the universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics, (with Nancey Murphy): Fortress Press, 1996; Russian and Chinese editions.
Dynamical systems in cosmology, (with John Wainwright, Eds.):
Cambridge University Press, 1996;
paperback, 2005.
Is The Universe Open or Closed? The Density of Matter in the Universe, (with Peter Coles): Cambridge University Press, 1997.
The
Far Future Universe, (Ed.):
Templeton Foundation Press, 2002.
Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (Ed., with Nancey Murphy and Timothy O’Connor). Springer: New York, 2009
Representative publications (papers on
cosmology/relativity):
“Cosmological
Models” (with Henk van Elst):, Cargese lectures 1998.
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9812046.
“Cosmic microwave background
anisotropies: Nonlinear dynamics” (with Roy Maartens and Tim Gebbie):,
Phys.Rev. D59 (1999) 083506. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9808163.
“On Holography and
Cosmology” (with Reza Tavakol): Phys.Lett. B469 (1999) 37. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9908093
.
“83 years of general relativity
and cosmology: progress and problems”.
Class.
Quantum Grav. 16 (December 1999) A37-A75.
“Cosmology and Local
Physics”, Int.J.Mod.Phys. A17 (2002) 2667-2672.
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0102017
.
“`c' is the speed of light, isn't it?” (with Jean Phillipe Uzan):
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0305099
.
“The past attractor in inhomogeneous cosmology” (with Claes
Uggla, Henk van Elst, John Wainwright): http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0304002
.
“WMAP data and the curvature of space.” (with Jean Phillipe Uzan and Uli Kirchner): http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302597
.
“On the
Stability of the Einstein Static Universe” (with John D Barrow, Roy
Maartens, and Christos Tsagas):, Class.Quant.Grav. 20 (2003) L155-L164.
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0302094
.
“The
Emergent Universe: inflationary cosmology with no singularity” (with Roy Maartens): http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0211082
.
“The Emergent Universe: An Explicit
Construction” (with Jeff Murugan and Christos G. Tsagas): http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0307112 .
“Multiverses and physical cosmology” (with Uli Kirchner and Bill Stoeger):.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305292
.
“An emergent universe from a loop”
(with David Mulryne, Reza Tavakol, James E. Lidsey). http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0502589.
“The
universe seen at different scales” (with Thomas Buchert):
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0506106.
"Issues in the
Philosophy of Cosmology”.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602280.
“Physics in the
real universe: time and
spacetime”.
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0605049
.
“Causality and the speed of sound” (with Roy Maartens and Malcolm MacCallum):. http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0703121.
“Time drift of cosmological
redshifts as a test of the Copernican principle” (with Jean-Philippe Uzan
and Chris Clarkson): http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0801.0068.
“A
note on infinities in eternal inflation” (with Bill Stoeger).
General Relativity and Gravitation, Volume 41:
1475-1484 (2009)
“Dark matter and dark energy proposals:
maintaining cosmology as a true science?” Paper for CRAL-IPNL
conference "Dark Energy and Dark Matter", 2008.
“The
evolution of our local cosmic domain” (with Bill Stoeger).
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 398: 1527-1536 (2009)
Golden Oldie reprint of Varenna Lectures 1971: GRG Journal, 2009.
And now, some papers on quantum theory:
“On
the applicability of quantum physics.” Development of fqxi essay.
“Time and Spacetime: The
Crystallizing Block Universe” (with T Rothman):
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0912.0808.
Representative
publications (papers on education/developmental issues):
A view on the school maths
syllabus. (CASME talk, 1995).
The Development of Quantitative
Social Indicators. (Notes 2001).
South African Developmental Issues. SAIRR (Western Cape), 2001.
Representative
publications (papers on complexity/emergence):
Notes on reductionism and the
emergence of complexity.
Physics and the real world
[full length Foundations of Physics article
supporting shorter Nature version].
Top-Down Causation by
Information Control: From a Philosophical Problem to a Scientific Research
Program (with Gennaro
Auletta and Luc Jaeger): Journal of the Royal Society Interface 5:1159-1172 (2008).
On the nature of
causation in complex systems (extended
version of RSSA Centenary Transactions paper, 2008).
True complexity
and its associated ontology (Talk at John Wheeler birthday meeting)
Representative
publications (papers on the brain and language):
Neural Development: Affective and Immune System Influences. (with Judith Toronchuk): In
Consciousness and Emotion: Agency, Conscious Choice, and Selective
Perception Ed R D. Ellis and N Newton (John Benjamins, 2005), 81–119.
Disgust: Sensory
Affect or Primary Emotional System?
(with Judith
Toronchuk):
Cognition & Emotion, 21 (2007), 1799
– 1818.
Affective
Neuronal Darwinism: The Nature of the Primary Emotional Systems. (with Judith
Toronchuk).
Commentary
on “An Evolutionarily Informed Education Science” by David C
Geary. Educational
Psychologist 43 (4), 206-213 (2008).
Language Infinities. (with Bill Stoeger: unpublished).
Biology and mechanisms related to the dawn of language. To appear in proceedings of Homo Symbolicus meeting.
Salience Affected Neural Networks (with Leendert Remmelzwaal and Jonathan Tapson)
Web Notes:
1: The Universe Around
Us: An Integrative View of Science and Cosmology.
2: Course
on General relativity.
I am currently chairperson of Quaker Service (Cape), and am on the board of the Association for Educational Transformation (ASSET). ELRU, Philani, and The Little Hands Trust are other inspiring local organisations (I was on the Boards of ELRU and Philani for many years). I am an avid fan and supporter of the Pro Cantu Youth Choir. I am an amateur photographer on my mountain walks; the photos below are from an exhibition I held in 1999.
Finally, for those interested in
my views on science and religion, here is a paper I
wrote on the Quakers a long while ago, and here is
my Backhouse Lecture to the Australia Yearly Meeting of the Quakers.
