Conville & Walsh

Prof Frank Close OBE is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University, and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He won the Royal Society’s Faraday Prize for Science Communication in 2014. He has been Fellow of the Institute of Physics since 1991, and was awarded the Institute’s Kelvin Medal in 1996 for his contributions to the Public Understanding of Physics. Uniquely among professional scientists, he has won the British Science Writers’ Prize for articles in the national media on three occasions.

He has published over 200 research papers on theoretical particle physics, specializing in the quark theory of matter. He is the author of the classic textbook INTRODUCTION TO QUARKS AND PARTONS, and ten popular books on science, including THE COSMIC ONION, which has become a metaphor for particle physics. APOCALYPSE WHEN? was shortlisted for the Science Book Prize in 1989, and placed ahead of Hawking’s Brief History of Time (but regrettably not ahead in sales).

He was Vice President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science with responsibility for National Science Week, from 1992-98. He has served on several national and international advisory panels, was Head of Commiunications at CERN frmo 1997 to 2000, Interim Deputy for Science at the USA Jefferson Laboratory during 2000-2003, and chaired UK Commissions investigating the scientific case for human spaceflight. He is an advisor to CERN on their experimental programme.

He also writes for Prospect Magazine and is a regular contributer on Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time. He has made numerous television appearances, notably to present the televised Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1993.
In 2000, he was awarded the OBE for Services to Research and the Public Understanding of Science.