Joel Primack
Robert Joel Primack (* July 14, 1945 in Santa Barbara ) is an American physicist and astrophysicist. He is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a member of the Santa Cruz Institute of Particle Physics.
Life
Primack studied at Princeton University Physics with a bachelor's degree in 1966 and in 1970 received his doctorate at Stanford University. 1970 to 1973 he was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. From 1983 he was professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
In 1984 he was a visiting professor at SLAC, 2000 and 2001 visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, 1988 Forchheimer Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ( and again in 1990), 1992 Visiting scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, and in 1978 the Ecole Normale Superieure.
He is married to Nancy E. Abrams since 1977 and has a daughter.
Work
He conducted research in quantum field theory ( gauge field theories ), elementary particle physics, astroparticle physics and cosmology ( dark matter, large-scale structures in the universe ) and in particular to simulations of dark matter in cosmology to high-performance computers. He is director of the High Performance Computing Center Astro the University of California ( UC HiPACC ).
In 1982, he struck with Heinz Pagels, the lightest supersymmetric particle as a candidate of dark matter before.
In 1984 he published with Martin Rees, Sandra Moore Faber and George Blumenthal, the theory of cold dark matter (Cold Dark Matter CDM) .. have been developed by other astronomers as Carlos Frenk, George Efstathiou, Simon White CDM scenarios about the same time.
In 2011 he presented the results of supercomputer simulations of the LCDM ( Lambda Cold Dark Matter ) scenario for the origin of structure in the Universe, the Bolshoi project ( for Russian Bolshoi large).
He is also active in the popularization of science, including as adviser to the IMAX movie Cosmic Voyage ( 1996), writer of popular scientific articles and books, and in collaboration with planetariums.
Memberships, honors, Political and other activities
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society ( whose forum Physics and Society, he co-founded and in the Panel on Public Affairs, he was from 2002 to 2004 ) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Science and Human Rights program he co-founded, and their Congressional Science Fellow program he founded.
He was involved with Soviet scientists and the Federation of American Scientists from 1987 to 1990 for disarmament. In 1977 he received the Forum for Physics and Society Award from the APS with Frank von Hippel for their book Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena ( Basic Books, 1974). He was on the Council of the Federation of American Scientists and founder of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
In 1999 he received the Humboldt Research Award. 1974 to 1978 he was a Sloan Fellow.
1979 to 1980, he advised the Commission for the Investigation of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Iceland.
Writings
- With Nancy Abrams The view from the center of the universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos, Riverhead / Penguin 2006
- With Nancy Abrams The new universe and the human future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World, Yale University Press 2011