-
Birth
John Charlton Polkinghorne was born in Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. His mother, Dorothy Charlton, was the daughter of a groom who was a skilled horseman both as a rider and a trainer. His father, George Polkinghorne, worked at the local Post Office as a postmaster.
https://biologos.org/resources/videos/john-polkinghorne-in-a-nutshell -
Period: to
Relocation and High School
John and his family had moved to Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, after his father promoted to Head Postmaster. John attended Perse School in Cambridge where he excelled in mathematics, taking his advanced school examinations in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics.He landed a major scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge as a result. -
Period: to
College
After serving a year with the National Service, John entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He was tutored by Abram Besicovitch and Nicholas Kemmer, who took John as an incredible student and lecturer. He graduated in 1952, pursued his doctorates, submitted his thesis, and was awarded a PhD in physics in 1955. -
"Proceedings" of the Royal Society
John's publication describes the transformation operator of electrodynamics as well as its cause. Freeman Dyson reviewed John's work and the work was published in the Royal Society's "Proceedings" -
Postdoctoral
Polkinghorne accepted a postdoctoral Harkness Fellowship and traveled to the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with physicist Murray Gell-Mann. John attended lectures given by Murray and Richard Feynman. -
Period: to
Return to England and Employment
John was offered a lecturing position at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland toward the end of his Harkness Fellowship and accepted the offer a year later. After two years, he returned to Cambridge to teach. In 1965, he was promoted to reader and three years later he held a position as a Physics professor. He would hold this position until 1979. -
The Analytic S-Matrix
John, alongside David Olive, R. J. Eden, and P. V. Landshoff, published this work to explain the causality of the S-matrix in regards to spacetime and fields. The concept that "microcausality" causing "cross-symmetry" is also explored in this book. -
Period: to
Further Employment and Retirement
After surprisingly resigning from his professor duties, John decided to take up theological studies at Westcott House in Cambridge. He was ordained in 1982, became vicar of a parish in Blean in 1984, two years later was appointed fellow, dean, and chaplain of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and finally President of Queen's College, Cambridge in 1989. John would publish many of his works relating God to science during this time, and he would do so even even after his retirement in 1996. -
The Way the World Is
The first of several works relating Christianity to science, John walks through the world in the perspective of a Christian. He argues that Christianity presents a credible and compelling worldview that can be taken seriously even while fully understanding the importance of science. -
The Faith of a Physicist
In John's book, he addresses the rationalities which exist for Christian beliefs. He discusses how evolution and natural selection do not tell humanity's entire story, keying in to the existence of 'spirituality.' John portrays God as not simply an outside observer.
