Antonio Padilla (born 1975), also known as Tony Padilla, is a British theoretical physicist and science populariser. He is Professor of Physics at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

, where he is also Associate Director of the Nottingham Centre of Gravity.

Early life and education

Padilla studied at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

as an undergraduate, and completed his PhD at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

in 2002. At Durham he was part of the Centre for Particle Theory, a research group with members in both the Department of Mathematical Sciences and

Department of Physics Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Career

Padilla held research positions 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 ...

and the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...

before joining the University of Nottingham. He is active in

science communication Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the Public awareness of science, public awar ...

, and is a recurring presenter on the

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

series ''

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an Educational entertainment, educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channe ...

'' and its sister channel, ''

Sixty Symbols Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Computerphile'' and ''Numberph ...

''. In 2016, he and collaborator Nemanja Kaloper of the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

received the Buchalter Cosmology Prize for their work on the

cosmological constant problem In cosmology, the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the substantial disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and the much larger theoretical value of ...

. Kaloper and Padilla devised a new strategy; this involved rewriting Einstein’s equations to 'effectively cancel out the input from quantum fluctuations' and treat the cosmological constant as an average of the matter contribution over all of space and time. This produced a 'relatively small cosmological constant', but also predicted that universe expansion will eventually reverse direction. In 2022, Padilla released ''Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them'', which explains the role played by vast and ultra-small numbers in contemporary physics. The book was developed from a series of public lectures delivered by Padilla to raise money for a friend to receive cancer treatment abroad. Topics covered include the theory of

Graham's number Graham's number is an Large numbers, immense number that arose as an upper bound on the answer of a problem in the mathematical field of Ramsey theory. It is much larger than many other large numbers such as Skewes's number and Moser's number, bot ...

References

External links

University of Nottingham home pageNumberphile videos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Padilla, Antonio Living people 1975 births British physicists 21st-century British physicists Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of Durham University