John Moffat (physicist) - An Unusual Start To A Physics Career

An Unusual Start To A Physics Career

Moffat began life as a struggling artist, but gave up after living for a time in Paris with no income. Upon returning to Copenhagen, Denmark, he became interested in the cosmos and began teaching himself mathematics and physics. He made such quick progress that within a year he began working on problems of general relativity and unified field theory.

"When I was about 20, I wrote a letter to Albert Einstein telling him that I was working on one of his theories. In 1953 Einstein sent me a reply, from Princeton, New Jersey, but it was written in German. So I ran down to my barber shop (in Copenhagen) to have my barber translate it for me. Through that summer and fall, we exchanged about a half dozen letters. The local press picked up on these stories which then caught the attention of physicist Niels Bohr and others. Suddenly doors of opportunity were swinging open for me". (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 2005)

In 1958, he became the only Trinity College, Cambridge student to be awarded a Ph.D. without a first degree. (He was supervised by Fred Hoyle and Abdus Salam.)

"Dear Professor . . . I would be eternally indebted if you could find time to read my work," he began.

“Most honorable Mr. Moffat: Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open, and we try hard to discuss what is inside and what is not,” Einstein replied.

During a career that spans over five decades, Moffat worked on a variety of subjects in Theoretical Physics. These include particle physics, quantum field theory, quantum gravity and cosmology.