Appearing in: The New Renaissance
"One has to be ambitious in order to get anything done." - John Ellis
John Ellis is a Maxwell prize-winning theoretical physicist, who since 1978 has held an indefinite contract at CERN. A favourite of HowTheLightGetsIn, he is beloved for his unique fashion sense and especially his penchant for t-shirts featuring Maxwell's equations.
He has made important contributions in many fields of inquiry, including particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. In the 1980s he became a leading advocate of supersymmetry, a proposed extension to the Standard Model of particle physics. As well as his quirky wardrobe, Ellis is known for his efforts to popularise science and involve non-European nations in CERN activities.
"The theoretical guru in CERN" - Cambridge physicist David Tong