History

150 years of Science, Agriculture and Engineering (SAgE)

A short timeline of Physics at Newcastle University

1871 the Durham College of Physical Science was founded in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Alexander Stewart Herschel begins to work here as the first Professor of Physics and Experimental Philosophy, later elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).

1904 renamed Armstrong College in honour of local industrialist and philanthropist Lord William Armstrong. Armstrong was an eminent scientist, engineer and inventor. In particular, he led the way with new developments in hydraulics, and his home at Cragside was the first in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity.

1937 Armstrong College and the College of Medicine merge to form King’s College.

1952 Teaching of Statistics as a separate discipline starts

1962 Herschel Building and Annex, now the home of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics is built. It is named after astronomer Alexander Stewart Herschel, who was known for his work relating to meteors and comets. Alexander Herschel was also interested in Hamilton’s Icosian game and described solutions for the regular tetrahedron and icosahedron in place of the normal dodecahedron. The Herschel graph is named after him in honour of his pioneering work and describes the smallest convex polyhedron that can be used in place of the dodecahedron to give a game that has no solution.

1962 Spiral Nebula sculpture by sculptor Geoffrey Clarke commissioned, installed in 1963 in front of the Herschel Building, now Grade II listed

1963 King’s College (having grown way larger than all the Durham division) becomes independent of the University of Durham and becomes the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

1968 Grubb-Parsons Telescope Mirror put in Herschel Foyer

1980 Cosmology Group founded by Paul Davies who is appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics, his contributions include describing how black holes radiate energy and the ripples in the otherwise homogeneous Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

2002 School of Mathematics becomes School of Mathematics and Statistics

2007 Mathematics & Statistics moves into the Herschel Building

2015 Relaunch of Physics Undergraduate Teaching Programs using the new facilities in the Herschel Annex.

2017 School of Mathematics, Statistics & Physics forms

Public Lectures on Cosmology

October 2022: Is there any science in science fiction films? by Professor Douglas Scott

April 2022: The state of our Universe by Professor Ed Copeland

October 2020: Everything from nothing: how our universe was made by Professor Carlos Frenk

November 2011: Why is the universe bio-friendly? (Robinson Prize Lecture in Cosmology) by Professor Paul Davies

Robinson Prize & Lectures in Cosmology

Awarded biennially, the prize was established in 1990 through the generosity of Philip Robinson, a Newcastle native and antiquarian book dealer, who had a particular interest in cosmology and in making cosmology accessible to broader audiences. Robinson, the Tyneside, England-born bookseller, gained an international reputation during his lifetime as a bibliographical scholar. The main Newcastle University library was named in his honour in 1989. The recipient gives a public lecture and seminars to students. See all previous prize winners on the dedicated page.

Newcastle University Honorary Graduates

2015 Bruce Babbit (served as US senator, did geophysics at Newcastle)

1995 Martin Rees

1994 Arnold Wolfendale

1987 Stephen Hawking

1976 Fred Hoyle

1965 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

1965 Hannes Alfvén

Notable Newcastle University Graduates

1906 Mary Kingdown Heslop graduates in physics and geology from Armstrong College, she went on to become the first female lecturer in geography at Leeds University and one of the first women Fellows of the Geological Society of London.

1910 Sir Harold Jeffreys (FRS) graduates with distinction from Armstrong College, he went on to publish “A Theory of Probability”, introduced Bayes’ factor and played a prominent role in reviving Bayesian statistics. A plaque in the Herschel Building is dedicated to him.

2002 Lisa Harvey-Smith obtains a Master of Physics degree with honours, majoring in astronomy and astrophysics, now she is Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador and a Professor of Practice in Science Communication at the University of New South Wales

Notable Physicists with ties to Newcastle

Peter Higgs (1929 in Newcastle), Theoretical Physicist, Nobel Laureate, Emeritus at University of Edinburgh

Peter Coles (1963 in Newcastle), Theoretical Cosmologist, Professor at Maynooth University

Oliver Heaviside (1850 – 1925, in Newcastle between 1868-1874), mathematician and physicist, invented technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed vector calculus and rewrote Maxwell’s equations in the form commonly used today

Previous Group Members

Previous Faculty Members

Previous PostDocs & Fellows

Dr Gary (I-Kang) Liu (Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow 2020-2022)

Florent Michel (2016-2019, with Durham)

Jonathan Pearson (2011-2014, with Durham)

James Gray (2001-2003, Research Fellow, now Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech)

James Grant (1995-1997)

Olga Buryak (1994-1995)

Bruce Jensen (1994-1996)

Patrick Brady (1993-1995, now Professor at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee)

Salvatore Mignemi (1991-1993, now Professor at University of Cagliari)

Janaki Balakrishnan (1991-1992, now Professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies in India)

Alan McLachlan (1990-1991)

John McLaughlin (1989-1990)

David Wiltshire (1989-1990, now Professor at University of Canterbury New Zealand)

Mark Hindmarsh (1989-1991, now Professor at Sussex)

John Barrett (1985-1989, now Professor at Nottingham)

Varun Sahni (1986-1988, now Emeritus Professor at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India)

Richard Rowher (1987-1988)

Colin Campbell (1987-1988)

Ian Moss (1982-1984 postdoc, 1984-1995 Lecturer, 1995-2002 Reader, since 2002 Professor)

Previous postgraduate students

Ashley Wilkins (PhD 2022, Stochastic Processes in Mesoscale Physics and the Early Universe)

Marios Bounakis (PhD 2021, Cosmological implications of field space geometry)