Jonathan Mark Butterworth is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at University College London (UCL) working on the

ATLAS experiment ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of ...

at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His popular science book ''Smashing Physics'', (available as “Most Wanted Particle” in Canada and the USA) which tells the story of the search for the Higgs boson, was published in 2014 and his

newspaper column A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication, where a writer expresses their own opinion in few columns allotted to them by the newspaper organisation. Columns are written by columnists. What differe ...

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

''Life and Physics'' is published by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''.

Early life and education

Butterworth was raised in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and educated at Wright Robinson High School in

Gorton Gorton is an area of Manchester in North West England, southeast of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Levenshulme and Openshaw. A major landmark is Gorton Monastery, a 19th-century Hig ...

and Shena Simon Sixth Form College. He studied Physics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, gaining a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in 1989 followed by a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

in 1992. His PhD research used the ZEUS particle detector to investigate

R-parity R-parity is a concept in particle physics. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, baryon number and lepton number are no longer conserved by all of the renormalizable couplings in the theory. Since baryon number and lepton number conservati ...

violating supersymmetry at the Hadron-Electron Ring Accelerator (HERA) at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, and was supervised by Doug Gingrich and Herbert K. Dreiner.

Research and career

Butterworth works on particle physics, particularly the

at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. His research investigates what nature is like at the smallest distances and the highest energies - the fundamental

physical law Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...

s. This tells us about the physics which was most important in the first few moments after the Big Bang. His research collaborators include Brian CoxAnon (2015) published by the Royal Institution, London and Jeff Forshaw and he has supervised or co-supervised several successful PhD students to completion on the ATLAS experiment, ZEUS and HERA. Butterworth frequently discusses physics in public, including talks at the Royal Institution and the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

and appearances on ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

'', '' Horizon'', ''

Channel 4 News ''Channel 4 News'' is the main news programme on British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since Channel 4's launch in November 1982. Current productions ''Channel 4 News'' ''Channel 4 News'' ...

'', ''

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

'', and

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Today Programme ''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is a long-running British morning news and current-affairs Radio program, radio programme on BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 6:00 am to 9:00 am, it is produced by BBC N ...

'' and ''

The Infinite Monkey Cage ''The Infinite Monkey Cage'' is a BBC Radio 4 comedy and popular science series. Hosted by physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince, ''The Independent'' described it as a "witty and irreverent look at the world according to science". The sh ...

''. He appeared with Gavin Salam in the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) documentary ''Colliding Particles - Hunting the Higgs'', which follows a team of physicists trying to find the Higgs Boson. His research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Bibliography

* Smashing Physics (2014) * A Map of the Invisible (2017)

Awards and honours

Butterworth was awarded a prestigious

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

in 2009 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: and shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books in 2015 for his book ''Smashing Physics''. He was awarded the

James Chadwick Medal and Prize The Institute of Physics awards numerous prizes to acknowledge contributions to physics research, education and applications. It also offers smaller specific subject-group prizes, such as for PhD thesis submissions. Bilateral awards * The Max B ...

by the Institute of Physics (IOP) in 2013. His citation at the IOP reads: ''Smashing Physics'' was also shortlisted for Book of the Year by ''

Physics World ''Physics World'' is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in ...

'' in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Jonathan Mark People associated with CERN Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders Academics of University College London Alumni of the University of Oxford Living people British physicists Year of birth missing (living people)