AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion

Biography

Joel Primack, Ph.D., is Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research has mainly been in relativistic quantum field theory and in cosmology and particle astrophysics, a field that he has helped to create. In collaboration with UCSC astronomers George Blumenthal and Sandra Faber and others, he developed the ``Cold Dark Matter'' (CDM) theory, which has helped to set the agenda for theoretical and observational cosmology for more than a decade. More recently, he has been using the largest supercomputers as well as analytic and semi-analytic techniques to investigate the implications of various hypotheses regarding the identity of the dark matter for the formation and distribution of galaxies. He also works on science and technology policy and on the cultural implications of the ongoing revolution in cosmology. He has developed computer games for teaching relativity and quantum mechanics, and cosmological computer visualizations. He is the co-editor of Dark Matter in the Universe (1995) and co-author of Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (1972). Primack was director of the 1986 Theoretical Advanced Study Institute at UCSC, and co-director of the 1995 Enrico Fermi school on Dark Matter at Varenna, Italy. He is the chair of the Advisory Board of the Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.