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Born
(born October 16, 1930, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England), English physicist and priest who publicly championed the reconciliation of science and religion. -
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Education
He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (1952) as well as a master’s degree (1955) and a doctorate (1956) in quantum field theory from Trinity College, Cambridge. He was appointed lecturer in mathematical physics at the University of Edinburgh in 1956. Polkinghorne received an additional doctorate in theoretical elementary particle physics from Trinity College in 1974. -
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Contribution to Science
He taught at his alma mater where he helped develop theories about particle physics and helped discover the quark.[2] After figuring that his best scientific contributions were behind him he decided to train for a position in the other important aspect of his life, Christianity, and became an ordained deacon in 1981. -
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Memberships
He was also a member of the Science Research Council (1975), the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England (1989–95), and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission (1999–2002) -
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Publishing
In 1983 Polkinghorne published The Way the World Is, in which he explained how a thinking person can be a Christian. It was the first of several works on the relationship between science and religion. The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker appeared in 1994 and Faith, Science and Understanding in 2000. -
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Society of Ordained Scientist
Polkinghorne helped found the Society of Ordained Scientists in 1986, a preaching order of the Anglican Communion, and he was founding president (2002–04) of the International Society for Science and Religion. -
Queen Elizabeth II
Polkinghorne was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 for distinguished service to science, religion, learning, and medical ethics -
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More Publish
Later publications exploring this fraught territory were The God of Hope and the End of the World (2002), Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality (2004), and Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship (2007). He published an autobiography, From Physicist to Priest, in 2007. -
Prize and Soceity
He was awarded the Templeton Prize for Science and Religion in 2002 and also in that year became the Founding President of the International Society for Science and Religion.