An award-winning biographer and science writer, Graham was formerly an academic, a museum professional and a consultant in science communication.
Based in London, he is a Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and a regular visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
As interested in the arts as in the sciences, he is a keen consumer of theatre, exhibitions, music, film, podcasts and, above all, books. For twenty-six years, he was an underground restaurant critic.
Life and Times
01
BORN
St Giles Hospital, London, UK
18 May 1953
02
RAISED
Graham and his sister Lindsey were raised by their parents in Orpington, Kent, UK.
03
EDUCATED
At Cray Valley Technical School, from 1964 to 1971, Graham showed some talent for physical science and mathematics – his favourite subject was applied mathematics. He was rather less in the arts, except as a critic, though a few lessons on Shakespeare had a profound impact on him.
04
UNIVERSITY
Inspired by the achievement of Paul Dirac (a hero of one of Graham’s acquaintances), Graham studied theoretical physics at the University of Liverpool (BSc 1974, PhD 1977). At Liverpool, he began to appreciate classical music, good food and the intimidating challenge of making a worthwhile contribution to fundamental physics.
05
ACADEMIC
Lecturer in physics at the Open University, 1977–1990. Briefly the youngest tenured academic in the UK. Quickly specialized as a teacher, chaired the team that produced the Science Foundation Course in the late 1980s and conceived its inter‑disciplinary science course Science Matters. Showed signs of addiction to Shakespeare, Tolstoy and their successors.
06
MUSEUMS
From 1990 to 2002, Graham worked at the Science Museum, London, in a variety of roles, culminating in his leading the exhibition team in the new Wellcome Wing, focusing on contemporary science and technology.
Photo: Andrea Kane / click to download
During and after the COVID pandemic, Graham became a full-time biographer, working exclusively on ‘Hawking’
OTHER BOOKS
The Universe Speaks in Numbers
How Modern Maths Reveals Nature’s Deepest Secrets
The supreme task of the physicist,’ Einstein declared, ‘is to arrive at the fundamental laws from which that universe can be built up by pure deduction.’ In The Universe Speaks in Numbers, Graham describes how Einstein’s successors are seeking these laws of nature with the help not only of new experimental results but also of cutting-edge mathematics.
At the heart of the search for a better understanding of nature is pattern-making, which is also central to mathematics. Theoretical physicists aim to discover natural laws – patterns among quantities relating to measurements made in experiments and observations. By contrast, the patterns sought by mathematicians may have nothing to do with reality. Remarkably – some say miraculously – the patterns that most interest contemporary mathematicians have proved to be successful in helping theoretical physicists to understand nature at the deepest level.
Isaac Newton supplied the first workable framework for the subject now known as theoretical physics. Graham describes how Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and their modern-day successors have applied mathematics – much of it new to them – in their quest to understand the order underlying the universe.
While researching the book, Graham visited several of the world’s leading centres of research in physics and mathematics and spoke with many top-drawer theoretical physicists, mathematicians and historians of science. Many of these experts commented that physics and mathematics have never been more intertwined, each subject shedding light on the other. Perhaps, as the physicist Paul Dirac suggested, mathematics and physics will one day unify?
WHAT REVIEWERS SAID
IT MUST BE BEAUTIFUL
Great Equations of Modern Science
First published in early spring 2002, this collection of essays quickly became a science best‑seller in the UK. Shortly afterwards, the book shot up the amazon.com charts overnight after an article about the book appeared in the New York Times.
The collection, edited by Graham, features pieces by leading scientists, historians and journalists about some of the great equations of twentieth‑century science, including:
• Igor Aleksander on Shannon’s equations
• Peter Galison on E = mc²
• Aisling Irwin on the Molina‑Rowland chemical equations
• Robert May on the logistic map
• Arthur I. Miller on Schrödinger’s equation
• Oliver Morton on the Drake equation
• Roger Penrose on Einstein’s equations of gravity
• John Maynard Smith on equations of evolutionary biology
• Steven Weinberg on how great equations survive
• Christine Sutton on the Yang‑Mills equation
• Frank Wilczek on the Dirac equation
Graham contributed a foreword, and an essay on the Planck‑Einstein equation of quantum theory.
WHAT REVIEWERS SAID
CHURCHILL’S BOMB
A hidden story of science, politics and war
On Sunday 4 April 1926, Winston Churchill – Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK government – wrote an essay about quantum theory, at that time a hot topic in physics. He promptly sent it to an Oxford professor of physics to check that his (Churchill’s) understanding was correct (it was). Seven years later, Churchill chaired a discussion about the great nuclear discoveries recently made by Rutherford’s group at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. Churchill was also a prolific writer about the implications of modern science for society and warfare, writing regular science columns for the News of the World, read by millions in the UK.
Churchill was much more interested in fundamental physics than most historians seem to realise, though they all appreciate his recognition of the importance of applying modern science and technology to warfare. He repeatedly warned in the 1930s that the nuclear age was imminent. Early in WWII, physicists in Britain showed that the Bomb could almost certainly be built. Partly because he – as prime minister – paid relatively little attention to the speculative weapon, the initiative soon passed to the US, which had the vast resources essential to realise the venture quickly. British scientists played only a minor role in it. Churchill dismissed warnings from the Danish physicist Niels Bohr that Anglo-American nuclear policy would lead to an arms race. After Churchill returned to power in 1951, he became the first British leader to have nuclear weapons, and also commissioned the H-bomb. Appalled by the prospect of thermonuclear war, he ended his political career as a pioneer of détente.