Joseph Ivor Silk is the Savilian Chair of Astronomy

Savilian Chair of Astronomy

The Savilian Chair of Astronomy at the University of Oxford in England was founded in 1619 and is named after Sir Henry Savile. The Professor is a Fellow of New College....

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. He came back to the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in 1999 to take up the position, following a nearly 30-year career at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He was educated at Tottenham County School (1954-1960) and Cambridge University (1960-1963). He held distinguished positions in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Groningen and Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

. Professor Silk, a post-graduate of Harvard, has given more than two hundred invited conference lectures, primarily on galaxy formation and cosmology.

He is a Fellow of New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

. and a Fellow of the Royal Society (elected May 1999)

Silk damping

The structure of the cosmic microwave background

Cosmic microwave background radiation

In cosmology, cosmic microwave background radiation is thermal radiation filling the observable universe almost uniformly....

 anisotropies is principally determined by two effects: acoustic oscillations and diffusion damping (also called collisionless damping or Silk damping). The latter is named Silk damping after Joseph Silk.

Publications

Silk has over 500 publications, of which 3 have been cited over 400 times, 20 have been published in Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

and 11 in Science

Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

.

Books by Joseph Silk

• On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0521836271, Google Link
• The Big Bang , W.H. Freeman, 2005, ISBN 071671812X
• Cosmic Enigmas , Springer, 1994, ISBN 1563960613, Google Link

External links

• Professor Joe Silk homepage