Paul S. Wesson

Paul Stephen Wesson, FRAS is an astronomer, currently a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Wesson graduated in 1971 from the University of London with a First Class Honours in Physics. He then completed Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at St John's College, University of Cambridge. In the early seventies, at the suggestion of Sir Edward Bullard, Wesson headed a seismic survey in Afghanistan for that university. He also wrote several papers on theoretical geophysics under the influence of Sir Harold Jeffreys, before turning his attention to theoretical astrophysics. He gained his Ph.D. in the latter area at Cambridge under the supervision of Sir Martin Rees. Later, he emigrated to Canada, where he has spent most of his time in Waterloo, with leaves to various other universities including Berkeley and Stanford. In 2003, Wesson's alma mater the University of London granted him a “higher doctorate” or D.Sc., in recognition of his fundamental contributions to astrophysics and gravitation.

Wesson's work in recent years has focused on two important projects: (a) to explain the intensity of the radiation field between the galaxies, and thereby confirm the big-bang model for the origin of the universe; (b) to explain the generation of mass in theories which extend Einstein’s general relativity and unify gravity with the forces of particle physics. These subjects have a common region, namely the nature of the dark matter and dark energy which are inferred from modern telescopic observations. Wesson has written over 250 articles and 10 books.

elected Books

*"Space-Time-Matter", 2007 (2^nd Edition), World Scientifc, ISBN 981-270-632-1
*"Brave New Universe", (coauthor Paul Halpern), 2006, Joseph Henry Press, ISBN 0309101379
*"Cosmic Dreams", 2003, Vantage Press Inc., ISBN 0-533-14632-1
*"Interstellar Undertakers", 2002, Vantage Press Inc., ISBN 0-533-13956-2

External links

* [http://astro.uwaterloo.ca/~wesson Space-Time-Matter Consortium]