Francis Edwin Close
In addition to his scientific research, he is known for his lectures and writings making science intelligible to a wider audience.
From Oxford he went to Stanford University in California for two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow on the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In 1973 he went to the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire and then to CERN in Switzerland from 1973–5. He joined the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire in 1975 as a research physicist and was latterly Head of Theoretical Physics Division from 1991. He headed the communication and public education activities at CERN from 1997 to 2000. From 2001, he was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Oxford. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham from 1996–2002.
Close lists his recreations as writing, singing, travel, squash and Real tennis, and he is a member of Harwell Squash Club.
Books in order of publication:
An introduction to quarks and partons – 1979
The Cosmic Onion: Quarks and the Nature of the Universe – 1983
The particle explosion – 1987
End: Cosmic Catastrophe and the Fate of the Universe – 1988
Too Hot to Handle: The Story of the Race for Cold Fusion – 1990
Lucifer’s Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry – 2000
The particle odyssey: a journey to the heart of the matter – 2002
Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction – 2004
The New Cosmic Onion: Quarks and the Nature of the Universe – 2006
The Void – 2007
Antimatter – 2009
Nothing: A Very Short Introduction – 2009
Neutrino – 2010
The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe – 2011
Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy – 2015
Theories of Everything: Ideas in Profile – 2017
Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History– 2019
Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass – 2022
Destroyer of Worlds: The Deep History of the Nuclear Age, 1895-1965 – 2025
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