Richard A. Muller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard A. Muller (2005)

Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944 in New York City ) is an American physicist ( experimental particle physics , geophysics , astrophysics ), who is known for popular science books.

life and work

Muller studied physics at Columbia University ( Bachelor termination) and was at the Berkeley University of California, PhD. There he initially worked with Luis Walter Alvarez , undertook particle physics experiments with bubble chambers , was involved in the development of mass spectrometry with accelerators (Accelerator Mass Spectroscopy, AMS) (and used them for dating questions) and measured anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation early on (where he worked with George Smoot worked together). He is a professor at Berkeley and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory .

He is known for various popular science books and articles. For several years he was a columnist for the MIT Technology Review .

In particular, he dealt with questions of the geosciences, such as extinction cycles, ice ages , the interaction dynamics between the earth's core and earth's mantle and the mechanism of reversals of the earth's magnetic field , impact craters and red sprites . In 1988 Muller published the book Nemesis , in which he explained cycles of 26 million years in the extinction rates on earth due to comet impacts , corresponding to a periodic disturbance of the Oort cloud by a previously undiscovered double star companion of the sun ( nemesis ). He later continued the search for this hypothetical dwarf star companion of the sun and constructed an automated telescope for it with his group.

Muller was also involved in the automated supernova search by Saul Perlmutter and others that led to the discovery of accelerated expansion.

With Gordon MacDonald he published an essay in Science and a book in which he made periodic variations in the inclination of the earth's orbit to the ecliptic (with a period of 100,000 years) responsible for the ice ages, in contrast to Milanković's theory , which these on variations in the inclination of the earth's axis and other parameters. According to Muller and MacDonald, the direct cause is the associated variations in interstellar dust depending on the position of the earth's orbit. They support this by analyzing the content of oxygen isotopes in ocean sediments and the abundance of iridium in ocean sediments and ice cores from Greenland.

According to Muller and Morris, the impact of comets and asteroids also leads to reversals of the earth's magnetic field according to the following argumentation: the dust particles brought in by the impact lead to a lowering of the temperature on the earth, icing of the polar caps lowers the sea ​​level and leads to a reduction in the moment of inertia of the crust and mantle in relation to the earth's core (in the ppm range), whereupon the mantle rotates faster in relation to the core, which disrupts the convection cycles that generate the earth's magnetic field.

Muller thinks he has also found evidence (from dating with argon isotopes of micro tectites in lunar rock samples) for an increase in the rate of impact on the moon in the last 400 million years (with previous declines in the last 3 billion years).

Global warming views

Muller was a climate skeptic until about 2011/2012 . In 2004, he criticized the reconstruction of the mean temperature curve in the northern hemisphere over the past 1,000 years, known as the “ hockey stick diagram ” . Muller later founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, which, according to his own statements, aims to deal transparently with criticism of global temperature records in climate research. Muller was financed by climate deniers, including the Koch brothers .

The results of the project in which u. a. Nobel laureate in physics Saul Perlmutter and climatologist Judith A. Curry contradict the criticism of climate deniers. After analyzing 16 million temperature records from the last two centuries, the scientists of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project found a strong agreement of their results with those of earlier studies on this subject , both in terms of the extent and the human cause of global warming . As a result of the study results, Muller considered it necessary as a scientist to change his mind and described himself as a "converted skeptic". After completing his work, he wrote a guest article for the New York Times in mid-2012 , in which he explained how the project and the data gained in it made him from a skeptic to a staunch advocate of global warming. Among other things, he emphasized that global warming existed, the estimated warming rates were correct and that humans were almost the only cause of the warming.

Trivia

Muller also wrote a historical novel.

He is a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group . Muller has its own energy consultancy, Muller & Associates. In 1982 he was a MacArthur Fellow and received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation . In 1999 he received an award for teaching from the University of Berkeley and his popular physics lectures for general audiences at the university. Physics for Future Presidents was published as a book and authorized by the university as freely accessible recordings on YouTube . In 2010, Muller was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fonts

  • Nemesis: The Death Star , Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, ISBN 0-7493-0465-0 .
  • with Phil Dauber: The Three Big Bangs: Comet Crashes, Exploding Stars, and the Creation of the Universe , Addison-Wesley 1996, ISBN 0-201-15495-1 .
  • with Gordon JF MacDonald Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes: data, spectral analysis, and mechanisms , Springer Science + Business Media, 2002, ISBN 3-540-43779-7 .
  • The Sins of Jesus , Auravision Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-9672765-1-9 (historical novel).
  • Physics for Future Presidents , Custom Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-4266-2459-X .
  • The Instant Physicist: An Illustrated Guide , WW Norton, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Richard A. Muller  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard A. Muller: Radioisotope dating with accelerators , in: Physics Today , Volume 32, 1979, p. 23; Radioisotope dating with a cyclotron , in: Science , Volume 196, 1977, p. 489
  2. ^ Richard A. Muller: Cosmic background radiation and the new ether drift , in: Scientific American 1978. Smoot, Muller, M. Gorenstein: Detection of anisotropy in the cosmic blackbody radiation , in: Physical Review Letters , Volume 39, 1977, p 898
  3. ^ M. Davis, Muller, P. Hut: Extinction of species by periodic comet showers , in: Nature , Volume 308, 1984, p. 715
  4. ↑ Muller, D. Morris: Geomagnetic reversals from impacts on the earth , in: Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 13, 1986, p. 1177, on this Bertram Schwarzschild: Do asteroid impacts trigger geomagnetic reversals? , in: Physics Today, February 1987, p. 17
  5. ^ Walter Alvarez , Muller: Evidence in crater ages for periodic impact on the earth , in: Nature, Volume 308, 1984, p. 718
  6. ↑ Muller page on his research , accessed November 30, 2018.
  7. ↑ To the Science article by Muller, MacDonald . Muller, MacDonald: Glacial cycles and orbit inclination , in: Nature, Volume 377, 1995, p. 107, same: Glacial cycles and astronomical forcing , in: Science, Volume 277, 1997, p. 215
  8. ^ Review of the theses of Muller, Morris in Science Frontiers
  9. ↑ TS Culler, Muller et al. a .: Lunar impact history from 40 Ar / 39 Ar dating of glass spherules , in: Science, Volume 287, 2000, p. 1785
  10. ^ Richard A. Mueller: Global Warming Bombshell , in: MIT Technology Review , October 15, 2004
  11. ↑ See G. Thomas Farmer, John Cook: Climate Change Science. A modern synthesis. Volume 1 - The Physical Climate. Dordrecht 2013, p. 168f.
  12. ↑ Global Temperature Report for 2017 - Berkeley Earth . In: Berkeley Earth . January 18, 2018 ( berkeleyearth.org [accessed June 29, 2018]).
  13. ↑ on the latest results of the project, see Researchers hope for insight from climate change skeptics , in: Spiegel Online , November 7, 2011
  14. ↑ Leo Hickman: Climate change study forces skeptical scientists to change minds - Earth's land shown to have warmed by 1.5C over past 250 years, with humans being almost entirely responsible . Ed .: Guardian. July 29, 2012 ( HTML ).
  15. ^ Richard A. Muller: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic . Ed .: New York Times . July 30, 2012 ( HTML ). German version: Richard A. Muller: Conversion of a doubter . Ed .: Süddeutsche Zeitung. August 1, 2012 ( HTML ).
  16. ^ The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic . In: The New York Times , July 28, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  17. ↑ Website for his book Physics for Future Presidents ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.physicsforfuturepresidents.com
personal data
SURNAME Muller, Richard A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City