DAVIES, Paul (Charles Williams)

(1946-)

   UK physicist (currently [1992] Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Adelaide in Australia), science writer and sf author whose scientific nonfiction is perhaps more distinguished than his sf. His novel Fireball (1987) has ANTIMATTER pellets impacting Earth and creating chaos; although their actual source is an ALIEN spacecraft, they are interpreted by the USA as a Soviet weapon. The ideas are interesting, the thriller elements routine. However, his academic science books, signed P.C.W. Davies, and his popular science books, signed Paul Davies, are very good. In the former category are Space and Time in the Modern Universe (1977), The Forces of Nature (1979), The Search for Gravity Waves (1980) and The Accidental Universe (1982), among others. In the latter category are The Runaway Universe (1978; vt Stardoom 1979 UK), Other Worlds (1980), The Edge of Infinity (1981), God and the New Physics (1983), The Matter Myth (1991) with John GRIBBIN, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (1992), The Last Three Minutes: Latest Thinking About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe (1994) and Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications of the discovery of Extraterrestrial Life (1995), among others. The speculations tend more towards the theological in the later works. The pungency of his theological/cosmological writings is confirmed by the award to PD in 1995 of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion worth over one million US dollars, a prize in its field comparable to the Nobel.

   PN

   See also: COSMOLOGY; METAPHYSICS; PARALLEL WORLDS; SCIENTISTS.