Matthew William Choptuik (born 1961) is a Canadian theoretical physicist specializing in numerical relativity. Choptuik graduated from

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

with a master's degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. advised by

William Unruh William George "Bill" Unruh (; born August 28, 1945) is a Canadian physicist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver who described the hypothetical Unruh effect in 1976. Early life and education Unruh was born into a Mennonite family in ...

in 1986. He became an associate professor in 1995 at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. In 1999 he became a member of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

and in the same year he became a professor at University of British Columbia. In 1993, he discovered critical phenomena in gravitational collapse via numerical studies. He showed—under non-generic initial conditions —the possibility of the occurrence of

naked singularity In general relativity, a naked singularity is a hypothetical gravitational singularity without an event horizon. In a black hole, the singularity is completely enclosed by a boundary known as the event horizon, inside which the curvature of s ...

in general relativity with scalar matter. This had previously been the subject of a bet between Stephen Hawking,

Kip Thorne Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. F ...

and

John Preskill John Phillip Preskill (born January 19, 1953) is an American theoretical physicist and the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech ...

. Hawking lost the bet after Choptuik's publication, but renewed it under non-generic initial conditions.Matt Crenson, The naked truth: Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking loses a bet
APS News, February 12, 1997 Choptuik was the 2001 awardee of the

Rutherford Memorial Medal The Rutherford Memorial Medal is an award for research in the fields of physics and chemistry by the Royal Society of Canada. It was dedicated to the memory of Ernest Rutherford. It is awarded once for physics and once for chemistry each year, "f ...

. In 2003 he received the

CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics The CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics is an annual prize awarded by the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) and Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) to recognize research excellence in the fields of theoretical and ma ...

. In 2003 he became a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

. In 2002, he became an honorary doctor of Brandon University.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Choptuik, Matthew 1961 births Living people Canadian expatriate academics in the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century Canadian physicists Theoretical physicists 21st-century Canadian physicists University of British Columbia Faculty of Science alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of British Columbia faculty