Paul Frampton

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Paul Frampton
Paul Frampton in 2020.jpg
Frampton in 2020
Born (1943-10-31) 31 October 1943 (age 77)
Kidderminster, England
Alma materOxford University
Known forBilepton
Scientific career
FieldsParticle theory
Institutions
Doctoral advisorJ.C. Taylor

Paul Howard Frampton (born 31 October 1943) is an English theoretical physicist who works in particle theory and cosmology. From 1996 until 2014, he was the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Salento, in Italy.[1]

Early life[]

Born in Kidderminster, England, Frampton attended King Charles School, 1954–62 and then Brasenose College, Oxford, 1962–68. He received BA (Double First) in 1965, MA, DPhil in 1968, and DSc in 1984, all degrees from Oxford University.

Career[]

He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1990) and the American Physical Society (1981). In 1987 he was the project director for siting the Superconducting Supercollider, in North Carolina. A Festschrift for his 60th birthday has been published.[2]

His DPhil thesis analyzed the relationship between current algebra and superconvergence sum rules, and contained a 1967 sum rule. In 1970, he analyzed the absence of ghosts in the dual resonance model.

Three examples of his model building are the chiral color model, in 1987, which predicts axigluons; the 331 model, in 1992, which can explain the number of quark-lepton generations, and predicts bileptons; his proposal, in 1995, of the binary tetrahedral group as a flavor symmetry. All three serve as targets of opportunity for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In 2002, he built a model relating matter–antimatter asymmetry in the early universe to measurements possible on Earth. In 2015, he showed that the 331-model predicts long-lived quarks accessible to Run 2 of the LHC.

In formal directions, three examples are that he calculated, in 1976, the rate of vacuum decay in quantum field theory; in 1982, he analyzed ten-dimensional gauge field theory, and its hexagon anomaly, precursor to the first superstring revolution; in 1988, he constructed the Lagrangian which describes the dynamics of the p-adic string.

For cosmology, two examples are, in 2007, he built a cyclic model which can solve a 75-year-old entropy problem; in 2010, he discussed how dark energy may be better understood by studying temperature and entropy. In 2015, he demonstrated how cyclic entropy can lead to flat geometry without an inflationary era and estimated the time until contraction to be close to one hundred times the present age of the universe. In 2015 he also proposed a novel theory of dark matter, where the dark matter constituents are primordial black holes with many solar masses.[3] During 2017 and 2018, the signatures of bileptons at the LHC were analysed. In 2020, he published a paper about cosmological expansion which suggested, but did not prove, that string theory is not the correct theory of quantum gravity.

Drug smuggling conviction[]

In January, 2012, Frampton was arrested at the Buenos Aires airport after checking in a bag containing 2 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the lining. In November 2012, Frampton was convicted of drug smuggling in Argentina and was sentenced to four years and eight months in detention.[4] He said that he was a victim of a scam, and that he was tricked into transporting the suitcase.[5] He was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder while in prison, and said he was gullible because of the disorder and therefore susceptible to such a scam.[6] He was released in 2014.[citation needed] Under Argentine law, a foreign national can be released from prison and deported after serving half of his sentence. Frampton sought such release and agreed to never return to Argentina.[7] He was released in 2014.[citation needed]

Soon after his arrest, his pay was stopped and he was placed on personal leave. The move was widely criticized by the academic community.[8][9] He was fired from his UNC post in 2014. On 16 June 2015 an appeals court in North Carolina unanimously ruled that his university violated its own policies by placing Frampton on unpaid leave while he awaited trial, and ordered the university to restore Frampton's back salary and benefits.[9] Frampton's account of these events was published in 2014.[10]

Publications[]

Frampton's first publication was Chirality Commutator and Vector Mesons, in 1967. He has published over 480 articles on particle theory and cosmology. He was the author of a book[11] on string theory, in 1974 (2nd edition, 1986), when it was still named the dual resonance model. In 1986, he published a book[12] on quantum field theory (2nd edition 2000, 3rd edition 2008). A book[13] on cyclic cosmology, for the general public, was published in 2009. A book on the history of particle theory appeared in 2020.

  • P.H. Frampton, J.E.Kim (2020). History of Particle Theory. World Scientific Publishing Company. ISBN 9789811224652.

References[]

  1. ^ "Homepage paul frampton".
  2. ^ Curtright, T.; Mintz, S.; Perlmutter, A. (2004). "La Belle Epoque of High Energy Physics and Cosmology". World Scientific Publishing Company.
  3. ^ Frampton, Paul H.; Kawasaki, Masahiro; Takahashi, Fuminobu; Yanagida, Tsutomu T. (22 April 2010). "Primordial Black Holes as All Dark Matter". Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2010 (4): 023. arXiv:1001.2308. Bibcode:2010JCAP...04..023F. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2010/04/023. ISSN 1475-7516. S2CID 119256778.
  4. ^ Banks, Michael (22 November 2012). "Paul Frampton hit by 56-month drugs sentence". Physics World. Institute of Physics. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  5. ^ Swann, Maxine (8 March 2013). "The Professor, the Bikini Model and the Suitcase Full of Trouble". New York Times. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  6. ^ Price, Jay. "Professor accused of smuggling drugs says he has personality disorder". Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  7. ^ Blythe, Anne. "UNC physics professor jailed in Argentina wins back pay". Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  8. ^ Price, Jay (23 October 2012). "UNC professor Frampton asks for raise from Argentina jail". McClatchy D.C. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Blythe, Anne (16 June 2015). "UNC Physics Professor jailed in Argentina wins back pay". Raleigh News & Observer. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  10. ^ Frampton, Paul (2014). Tricked!: The story of an internet scam. ASIN B00RBVDAD0.
  11. ^ Frampton, P.H. (1974). Dual Resonance Models. Frontiers in Physics, W. A. Benjamin. ISBN 978-0-8053-2581-2.
  12. ^ Frampton, P.H. (1986). Gauge field theories. Frontiers in Physics, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-471-34783-5.
  13. ^ Frampton, P.H. (2009). Did Time Begin? Will Time End?: Maybe the Big Bang never occurred. World Scientific Publishing Company. ISBN 978-981-4280-58-7.

External links[]

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