It is with great sadness that we inform staff and students of the death of Chris Clarke who was Dean of the Faculty of Mathematical Studies from 1992 to 1996.
Chris Clarke wrote several significant books including ‘The Analysis of Space-Time Singularities’ and ‘Reality Through the Looking-Glass’
Chris Clarke gained his PhD in General Relativity (GR) from the University of Cambridge as part of the group led by British physicist, Dennis Sciama. The group contained many of the future research leaders in GR, including Stephen Hawking, and was described by one commentator as “one of the most remarkable groups of young scientists ever gathered together.”
After positions at Hamburg and York Universities, Chris moved to Southampton to take up the chair in Applied Mathematics and lead the GR group.
He was best known for his research on black holes and other end points of gravitational collapse and this was summarised in his book ‘The Analysis of Space-Time Singularities’. However, his work was very wide ranging and also covered astrophysics, quantum cosmology, the philosophy of quantum theory and the physics of the brain. In particular, he devised an algorithm for the biomagnetic inverse problem that helped develop the brain imaging devices used in hospitals today. The breadth of his interests can be seen in his popular book ‘Reality Through the Looking-Glass’.
He left the University of Southampton in 1999 to work freelance and devote more time to support for environmental and spiritual causes as exemplified by the ‘Green Spirit’ movement but continued to publish scientific papers on relativity and quantum theory.
