Professor Brian Cox with his OBE which was awarded by Queen Elizabeth II at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, on October 20, 2010, in London. Photo by Dominic Lipinski.
Stratton St, Mayfair, London W1J 8LT, United Kingdom
Brian Cox and Gia Milinovich attend a screening of "Gravity" hosted by Professor Brian Cox at The Mayfair Hotel on November 6, 2013, in London, England. Photo by Dave J. Hogan.
Land's End, Sennen, Penzance TR19 7AA, United Kingdom
Chris Evans, Gary Barlow, James May, and Professor Brian Cox launch FAB1 Million by driving from Land's End to John O'Groats on April 18, 2013, in Land's End, England.
Peninsula Square, Greenwich Peninsula, London SE10 0DX, United Kingdom
Sam Branson, Noah Devereux, Jack Whitehall, Jermain Jackman, Marion Bartoli, Isabella Calthorpe, Holly Branson, and Brian Cox attend a photocall to launch the Virgin STRIVE Challenge held at the 02 Arena on April 30, 2014, in London, England. Photo by Karwai Tang.
Brian Cox and David Gandy attend Debrett's 500 party, hosted at The Club at Cafe Royal on January 26, 2015, in London, England. The Debrett's 500 recognizes the most influential people in Britain, across 24 different categories, including Politics, Fashion, and Music. Photo by David M. Benett.
Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2AP, United Kingdom
Jessica Chastain, Emma Thomas, Professor Brian Cox, Doctor Kip Thorne, Professor Stephen Hawking, Christopher Nolan, Jake Zimmer, Hans Zimmer, and Zoe Zimmer attend at a special screening of "Interstellar Live" at Royal Albert Hall on March 30, 2015, in London, England. Photo by David M. Benett.
Kelly Hoppen, David Gandy, and Brian Cox speak onstage at Debrett's 500 party, hosted at The Club at Cafe Royal on January 26, 2015, in London, England. The Debrett's 500 recognize the most influential people in Britain, across 24 different categories, including Politics, Fashion, and Music. Photo by David M. Benett.
45 Queen Caroline St, Hammersmith, London W6 9QH, United Kingdom
Professor Brian Cox achieves Guinness World Records Title for the Most Tickets Sold for a Science Tour at the Hammersmith Apollo on December 02, 2016, in London, England. Photo by Nicky J. Sims.
Tristan Evans of the Vamps, James McVey of the Vamps, Brenda Blethyn, Bradley Simpson of the Vamps, Tom Hardy, Alesha Dixon, David Haye, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Geri Horner, Bear Grylls, Samantha Bond, Professor Brian Cox, Dynamo, Kevin Whately and Anna Williamson pose for a photo during The Prince's Trust Celebrate Success Awards at London Palladium on March 7, 2016, in London, England. Photo by Chris Jackson.
Omega President and CEO Raynald Aeschlimann, Buzz Aldrin, Prof. Brian Cox, and George Clooney on stage at the OMEGA 'Lost In Space' dinner to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the OMEGA Speedmaster, which has been worn by every piloted NASA mission since 1965, at Tate Modern on April 26, 2017, in London, England. Photo by Mike Marsland.
Arena Square, Engineers Way, London HA9 0AA, United Kingdom
Professor Brian Cox performs his Guinness World Record-breaking live tour show, Professor Brian Cox Live at SSE Arena Wembley on May 26, 2017, in London, England. Photo by Nicky J Sims.
Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
Professor Brian Cox and Doctor Jane Goodall arrive for the National Geographic 'An Evening Of Exploration', celebrating 130 years of National Geographic at Natural History Museum on January 31, 2018, in London, England.
Professor Brian Cox discovers the world of brewing as he launches 'Cosmic Brew' at The Union Club on September 25, 2018, in London, England. Photo by Mark Milan.
Professor Brian Cox discovers the world of brewing as he launches 'Cosmic Brew' with Michael Lees-Jones and William Lees-Jones at The Union Club on September 25, 2018, in London, England. Photo by Mark Milan.
Exhibition Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD, United Kingdom
Professor Brian Cox wears a pair of white glasses to support the GlassesOn campaign run by charity Clearly after speaking at Sightgeist at the Science Museum on March 28, 2019, in London, England. Sightgeist is an event organized by sight charity Clearly to raise awareness of the 2.5 billion people in the world that needlessly suffer from poor vision. Photo by Dave J. Hogan.
(Popular introduction to Einstein's theory of relativity, ...)
Popular introduction to Einstein's theory of relativity, co-written with Jeff Forshaw. The book explains the meaning of the equation E=mc2 and uses the Large Hadron Collider to illustrate the physics.
Brian Edward Cox is a British particle physicist, musician and broadcaster who is a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. He is best known for presenting BBC science programmes, including the Wonders series, and for popular physics books written with Jeff Forshaw. Before his scientific career, he played keyboards in the pop bands Dare and D:Ream.
Background
Cox was born on 3 March 1968 in Oldham, a town in Greater Manchester that had been a major centre of cotton spinning during the Industrial Revolution. Both of his parents worked in the banking industry. The family later lived in nearby Chadderton, from 1971 onward.
His childhood in Oldham included gymnastics, dance, and plane and bus spotting. A formative influence came at the age of twelve, when he read Carl Sagan's Cosmos, published in 1980 and based on the thirteen-episode television series of the same name. The book inspired him to become a physicist, and the interest in astronomy it awakened later shaped his scientific and broadcasting work.
In adolescence his interests were also drawn toward music. He became a keyboard player in pop bands during the late 1980s and 1990s, a commitment that affected his school work and subsequent path into higher education.
Education
From 1979 to 1986 Cox attended Hulme Grammar School in Oldham. The school traces its origins to an earlier Oldham grammar school dating from 1611, and its present buildings on Chamber Road were opened in 1895. It was a direct grant grammar school until 1976, when it became fully independent. Cox received a grade of D in mathematics at A level, and he later reflected that his band commitments and a lack of interest in the subject were the two reasons for the result. He resolved to put more effort into mathematics practice, and the poor grade did not prevent him from gaining a university place.
At the age of 23 Cox began a science degree at the University of Manchester. The institution had been formed in 2004 through the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester, founded in 1851 as Owens College, and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, known as UMIST. During his undergraduate studies the two institutions were still separate. Cox completed his first degree in physics with first-class honours, and he went on to a Master of Philosophy degree and then a doctorate in high-energy particle physics.
His doctoral thesis, Double Diffraction Dissociation at Large Momentum Transfer, was completed in 1998 under the supervision of Robin Marshall. Cox's postgraduate research was carried out at the German laboratory DESY in Hamburg, which he continued to associate with his later particle-physics work.
Cox's professional life began in music. He was a keyboardist in the Dare band from 1987 to 1992. Dare was a British pop group of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and its work involved touring and recording. He then played keyboards with D:Ream from 1993 to 1997. D:Ream was a British pop-rock group whose single Things Can Only Get Better reached number one in 1994, and when a choice arose between an international tour and his studies, Cox chose to remain in research.
His scientific career developed alongside these years. He carried out particle-physics research at the H1 experiment at DESY, the German national laboratory in Hamburg, which operated a collider at the time. He also worked on the D0 experiment at the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago, a laboratory known for its high-energy proton-antiproton collider. In 2003 he took up a post as a researcher at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, founded in 1954 and located near Geneva. Cox's later work at CERN concerned the ATLAS experiment on the Large Hadron Collider, which required him to spend extended periods at the site.
In 2005 Cox was appointed professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. The same year he began a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which ran until 2013. The Royal Society, founded in 1660, is the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. Its fellowship scheme supported early-career researchers of high promise, and Cox's fellowship helped establish his position at Manchester.
From 2005 Cox also worked as a presenter for the British Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster founded in 1922. He presented numerous science programmes on BBC television and radio, which became the main public face of his career. His work for the BBC included the Stargazing Live programme, which he hosted with the comedian Dara O Briain, and the Infinite Monkey Cage radio programme on BBC Radio 4 with the comedian Robin Ince. He has also presented the BBC series Wonders of the Solar System, Wonders of the Universe and Human Universe, among others. Through these programmes, he became widely known to the public as a presenter of physics and astronomy.
Cox holds a Guinness World Records title for the most tickets sold for a science tour, achieved with his live theatre show Brian Cox Live at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on 2 December 2016.
Cox's broadcasting and public-engagement work brought physics and astronomy to a wide audience through BBC series such as Wonders of the Solar System, Wonders of the Universe and Human Universe. Commentators have credited his popularity with renewing interest in physics among young people in Britain, a trend associated with rising enrolment in university physics departments.
(DVD release of a series titled Planets, issued in 2019.)
2019
Religion
Cox has said that he has never believed in God, but he does not describe himself as an atheist. In a 2010 interview with the Guardian he said that he has no personal faith. In 2019 he told BBC Radio 5 Live that he cannot be sure there is no God and that science cannot answer every question. Agnosticism, the position he has described, holds that the existence of God is unknown or cannot be known, and it is distinct from both belief and the active rejection of belief.
Cox is also a humanist and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. Humanism is a tradition that seeks to lead an ethical life without religious belief, relying on reason, scientific evidence and concern for human welfare. The British Humanist Association, the national charity for this tradition, promotes humanism, campaigns for an open society and a secular state, and works with people of other beliefs for the common good. In 2010 Cox gave the association's Voltaire Lecture on the value of large-scale science, responding to the claim that science cannot meet people's spiritual needs or provide purpose and meaning. He has also argued in interviews that flatly asserting there is no God is naive.
Politics
Cox has not been involved in party politics and rarely speaks about politics in public. He has, however, expressed concern about Brexit, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union that followed the 2016 referendum. He described it as a weakening of the country's relationship with its neighbours in Europe and said that it could not be the right direction for the country.
His public advocacy has focused on science rather than party platforms. He has argued that Britain should become a more scientific nation, that science and engineering deserve public celebration and promotion, and that public funding of research is important. He is also a strong advocate for science education, and he has linked these positions to the national investment in research.
Views
Cox has argued that the public should be drawn to science through its ability to explain the natural world, and he has emphasised that the universe and astronomy are easy subjects to engage audiences with, citing the scale of galaxies and the variety of worlds beyond Earth. He has consistently called for Britain to become a more scientific nation and has argued that science and engineering should be celebrated and promoted. He points to the country's industrial history as evidence of its scientific and engineering capacity.
His views on knowledge emphasise the limits of science in answering every question while holding that scientific inquiry is the most reliable route to understanding nature. He has described his humanist outlook as rejecting religious belief without asserting that the existence of God can be ruled out with certainty.
Membership
Cox was elected an International Fellow of the Explorers Club in 2002. The club was founded in New York City in 1904 to promote exploration and the scientific study of land, sea, air and space, and it holds lectures and events that bring explorers and scientists together with the public. The organization gained a reputation for honouring field research and expedition work.
In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the national academy of sciences of the United Kingdom, which has been recognising scientific achievement since its founding in 1660. Election as a Fellow is a distinction conferred on scientists who have made substantial contributions to science.
Fellow
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
2016 - present
International Fellow
Explorers Club
,
United States
2002 - present
Interests
Dance, aircraft spotting, bus spotting, playing keyboards in bands, and music performance. He has also made a guest appearance as a keyboard player during a live performance of the song Your Silent Face by New Order in 2015.
Philosophers & Thinkers
Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan
Sport & Clubs
Oldham Athletic Association Football Club, gymnastics
Music & Bands
Pink Floyd, Elton John, David Bowie, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Dinah Washington, Alien Sex Fiend, Eric Idle
Connections
Cox married the American science presenter Gia Milinovich in 2003. Their son, George Eagle Cox, was born on 26 May 2009; his middle name, Eagle, was taken from the Apollo 11 lunar module. Cox also has a stepson, Moki, from Milinovich's family.
The relationship between Cox and Milinovich is documented through their marriage and shared family life. Milinovich has said that her initial attraction to Cox began when she saw that he had a CERN email address, which linked the couple to his research work at the European laboratory.
Wife:
Gia Milinovich
American science presenter. She has said that her initial attraction to Cox began when she saw that he had a CERN email address.
Son:
George Eagle Cox
Born on 26 May 2009. His middle name, Eagle, was taken from the Apollo 11 lunar module.
From the British Science Association, 2006. Awarded for publicising science to the public; the British Science Association was earlier known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
From the British Science Association, 2006. Awarded for publicising science to the public; the British Science Association was earlier known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Kelvin Medal and Prize,
United Kingdom
From the Institute of Physics, 2010. The Institute of Physics is the professional body for physics in the United Kingdom.
From the Institute of Physics, 2010. The Institute of Physics is the professional body for physics in the United Kingdom.
Most Excellent Order of the British Empire,
United Kingdom
Officer, 2010, for services to science. The order was established in 1917 to recognise service to the British Empire and, later, the United Kingdom.
Officer, 2010, for services to science. The order was established in 1917 to recognise service to the British Empire and, later, the United Kingdom.
President's Medal,
United Kingdom
From the Institute of Physics, 2012.
From the Institute of Physics, 2012.
Michael Faraday Prize,
United Kingdom
From the Royal Society of London, 2012. The prize is awarded by the Royal Society for communicating science to the public.
From the Royal Society of London, 2012. The prize is awarded by the Royal Society for communicating science to the public.
