The College is proud to announce that Daniel Baumann, who completed his undergraduate degree in Mathematics at St Edmund’s, has been appointed the inaugural Stephen W. Hawking Professor of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Stephen W. Hawking started his Cambridge journey as a PhD student in 1962, soon rising to the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1979. He retired from this position in 2009, and became the Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), a position he held until his death in 2018. Now Baumann, with the support of the Avery‑Tsui Foundation, follows in his footsteps.
When he first encountered Hawking’s work at the age of 14, through Hawkins’ infamous novel A Brief History of Time, Baumann may not have “understood much of it”, but “the deep questions about the Universe it describes” drew him in. Now, these very same questions – how did the universe begin? and where did the stars, planets, galaxies come from? – are the impetus of his work.
“It’s a tremendous honour for me to become the first Stephen Hawking Professor. Stephen Hawking was an enormous figure in my field, so it is profoundly humbling to hold a Chair established in his name.”
A central aspect of Baumann’s work is the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), believed to be radiation left over from the Big Bang. The CMB shows that today’s cosmological structures grew from density fluctuations in the early Universe. Statistical correlations between these fluctuations act as a “fossil record”, preserving clues about the Universe’s earliest moments. However, because these correlations span enormous distances, “larger than the distances you’d think signals could have travelled before the CMB was formed,” said Professor Baumann, they point to a striking conclusion: “They tell us that the Big Bang was not the beginning of time.”
These correlations suggest that before the Big Bang, the Universe underwent a brief period of ‘inflation’, during which it underwent exponential expansion. To better understand this ‘inflation’ period, Professor Baumann has helped pioneer a new approach known as the ‘cosmological bootstrap’, which “has helped drive a genuine paradigm shift in the field”, according to Professor of Theoretical Physics Enrico Pajer. It offers a new strategy for reconstructing the possible forms of cosmic correlations and, according to Pajer, may ultimately help us “fully understand the beginning of time and space.”
“Daniel has made an extraordinary number of highly influential contributions to cosmology. He combines originality, clarity, and breadth in a way that is truly rare.”
Professor Baumann will work across research groups at DAMTP and play a leading role at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. He also plans collaborations with the Institute of Astronomy and international partners, including the Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics.
Reflecting on his return, he said: “Cambridge is one of the world’s leading centres for research in cosmology, and I am excited to become part of this inspiring and vibrant intellectual community again.”
St Edmund’s is unbelievably proud of Professor Baumann’s achievements, and eagerly await the ground-breaking discoveries he is sure to make in his new professorship.
Image above: Julian Baumann.
