Jonathan Mark Butterworth is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at University College London (UCL) working on the

ATLAS experiment ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

book ''Smashing Physics'', (available as “Most Wanted Particle” in Canada and the USA) which tells the story of the search for the Higgs boson, was published in 2014 and his

newspaper column A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication, where a writer expresses their own opinion in few columns allotted to them by the newspaper organization. People who write columns are described as columnis ...

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

''Life and Physics'' is published by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''.

Early life and education

Butterworth was raised in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

and educated at Wright Robinson High School in

Gorton Gorton is an area of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. It is to the southeast of Manchester city centre. The population at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Levenshulme and Openshaw. A ...

and Shena Simon Sixth Form College. He studied physics at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, gaining a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in 1989 followed by a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

in 1992. His PhD research used the ZEUS particle detector to investigate

R-parity R-parity is a concept in particle physics. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, baryon number and lepton number are no longer conserved by all of the renormalizable couplings in the theory. Since baryon number and lepton number conservatio ...

violating

supersymmetry Supersymmetry is a Theory, theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between Particle physics, particles with integer Spin (physics), spin (''bosons'') and particles with half-integer spin (''fermions''). It propo ...

at the Hadron-Electron Ring Accelerator (HERA) at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, and was supervised by Doug Gingrich and Herbert K. Dreiner.

Research and career

Butterworth works on particle physics, particularly the

at the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

. His research investigates what nature is like at the smallest distances and the highest energies - the fundamental

physical law Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...

s. This tells us about the physics which was most important in the first few moments after the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

. His research collaborators include Brian CoxAnon (2015) published by the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

, London and Jeff Forshaw and he has supervised or co-supervised several successful PhD students to completion on the ATLAS experiment, ZEUS and HERA. Butterworth frequently discusses physics in public, including talks at the

and the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

and appearances on ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' is the BBC's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. It is broadcast weeknights at 10:30 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel; it is also avail ...

'', ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...

'', ''

Channel 4 News ''Channel 4 News'' is the main news programme on British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since Channel 4's launch in November 1982. Current productions ''Channel 4 News'' ''Channel 4 News'' ...

'', ''

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

'', and

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's ''

Today Programme ''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is BBC Radio 4's long-running morning news and current-affairs radio programme. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 06:00 to 09:00 (starting on Saturday at 07:00), it is produced by BB ...

'' and ''

The Infinite Monkey Cage ''The Infinite Monkey Cage'' is a BBC Radio 4 comedy and popular science series. Hosted by physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince, ''The Independent'' described it as a "witty and irreverent look at the world according to science". Since 2 ...

''. He appeared with

Gavin Salam Gavin Phillip Salam, is a theoretical particle physicist and a senior research fellow at All Souls College as well as a senior member of staff at CERN in Geneva. His research investigates the strong interaction of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), ...

in the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) documentary ''Colliding Particles - Hunting the Higgs'', which follows a team of physicists trying to find the Higgs Boson. His research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Bibliography

* Smashing Physics (2014) * A Map of the Invisible (2017)

Awards and honours

Butterworth was awarded a prestigious

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship, known as the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award until 2020, is a 5 years fellowship awarded by the Royal Society since 2000. The scheme is described by the Royal Society as providing ''long-term flexib ...

in 2009 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: and shortlisted for the

Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, ...

in 2015 for his book ''Smashing Physics''. He was awarded the

James Chadwick Medal and Prize The Institute of Physics (IOP) awards numerous prizes to acknowledge contributions to physics research, education and applications. It also offers smaller specific subject-group prizes, such as for PhD thesis submissions. Bilateral awards * Th ...

by the Institute of Physics (IOP) in 2013. His citation at the IOP reads: ''Smashing Physics'' was also shortlisted for Book of the Year by ''

Physics World ''Physics World'' is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in ...

'' in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Jonathan Mark People associated with CERN Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders Academics of University College London Alumni of the University of Oxford Living people British physicists Year of birth missing (living people)