Don Nelson Page (born December 31, 1948) is an American-born Canadian theoretical

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

, Canada.

Work

Page's work focuses on quantum cosmology and theoretical gravitational physics, and he is noted for being a doctoral student of

Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...

, who was at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

during 1974-1975, in addition to publishing several journal articles with him. Page got his BA at William Jewell College in the United States in 1971, attaining an MS in 1972 and a PhD in 1976 at

. His professional career started as a research assistant in Cambridge from 1976-1979, followed by an assistant professorship at

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with ca ...

from 1979-1983, and then an associate professor at Penn State until 1986 before taking on the title of professor in 1986. Page spent four more years at Penn State before moving to become a professor at the

in Canada in 1990. In 1993, he argued that if a

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

starts in a pure quantum state and evaporates completely by a unitary process, the von Neumann entropy of the

Hawking radiation Hawking radiation is black-body radiation released outside a black hole's event horizon due to quantum effects according to a model developed by Stephen Hawking in 1974. The radiation was not predicted by previous models which assumed that onc ...

initially increases and then decreases back to zero when the black hole has disappeared. This is known as the Page curve, and the turnover point of the curve the Page time. For many researchers, deriving the Page curve is synonymous with solving the famous black hole information paradox.

Awards and honors

In 2012, Page became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Religious views

Page is an Evangelical Christian. In commenting on the debate between

William Lane Craig William Lane Craig (; born August 23, 1949) is an American Analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, author, and theologian. He is a professor of philosophy at Houston Christian University and at the T ...

and Sean Carroll in 2014, he states in a guest post on Carroll's website that: "...in view of all the evidence, including both the elegance of the laws of physics, the existence of orderly sentient experiences, and the historical evidence, I do believe that

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

exists and think the world is actually simpler if it contains God than it would have been without God." In the same post he criticises William Lane Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument, saying that it "is highly dubious metaphysically, depending on contingent intuitions .e. the first premisewe have developed from living in a universe with relatively simple laws of physics and with a strong thermodynamic arrow of time."

References

External links

Don Page's personal web site (archived)
Canadian evangelicals Canadian physicists California Institute of Technology alumni Living people Academic staff of the University of Alberta 1948 births People from Bethel, Alaska Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada William Jewell College alumni {{physicist-stub

Work

Awards and honors

Religious views

See also

References

External links