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Revision as of 09:41, 20 July 2026
Jo Magueijo | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1967 Évora, Portugal |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Known for | Light, Varying speed of light (VSL) cosmology, Doubly special relativity |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physicist |
Jo Magueijo (João Magueijo, born 1967 in Évora, Portugal) is a Portuguese physicist and cosmologist, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. He is best known as one of the originators of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology, which proposes that the speed of light was far greater in the very early universe than it is today, and as the author of the popular science book Faster Than the Speed of Light.
Biography
Magueijo was born in Évora, Portugal, in 1967. He studied physics at the University of Lisbon and then moved to the University of Cambridge for graduate work, completing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Anne-Christine Davis. He was awarded a research fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge, and subsequently held faculty positions at Princeton University and Cambridge before joining Imperial College London, where he is Professor of Theoretical Physics and teaches general relativity to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Scientific contributions
In 1998 Magueijo, working with Andreas Albrecht, proposed the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology, in which the speed of light in the early universe was very much larger than its present value. VSL was advanced as an alternative to cosmic inflation, offering a possible resolution of the horizon, flatness and cosmological constant problems without requiring a period of exponential expansion. The proposal was controversial because a variable speed of light conflicts with the constancy of c assumed in Einstein's special relativity.
Magueijo has also worked on deformations of special relativity. With Lee Smolin he proposed a formulation of doubly special relativity, published as "Lorentz invariance with an invariant energy scale" (2002), in which a fundamental energy scale — plausibly the Planck energy — joins the speed of light as an observer-independent invariant through a non-linear action of the Lorentz group on momentum space. His other research interests include quantum gravity, tests of Lorentz invariance, and the statistics of the cosmic microwave background.
Books
- Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation (2003)
- A Brilliant Darkness: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the Nuclear Age (2009)
- Bifes Mal Passados (2014), published in Portugal
Media
- Host of the Science Channel special João Magueijo's Big Bang, which premiered on 13 May 2008.
- Interviewed on the documentary series Through the Wormhole, presented by Morgan Freeman.