Brian Josephson

Brian Josephson
Josephson in 2004
Born
Brian David Josephson

(1940-01-04) 4 January 1940
Cardiff, Wales, UK
EducationCardiff High School
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Known forJosephson effect
MovementTranscendental Meditation
Spouse
Carol Olivier
(m. 1976; died 2025)
Children1
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsCondensed matter physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge (1967–2007)
ThesisNon-linear conduction in superconductors (1964)
Doctoral advisorBrian Pippard
Other academic advisorsPhilip W. Anderson

Brian David Josephson (born 4 January 1940) is a British theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever for his discovery of the Josephson effect, made in 1962 when he was a Ph.D. student at Cambridge.

Josephson has spent his academic career as a member of the Theory of Condensed Matter Group in Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. He has been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, since 1962, and served as Professor of Physics from 1974 until 2007.

In the early 1970s, Josephson took up Transcendental Meditation and turned his attention to issues outside the boundaries of mainstream science. He set up the Mind–Matter Unification Project at Cavendish to explore the idea of intelligence in nature, the relationship between quantum mechanics and consciousness, and the synthesis of science and Eastern mysticism, broadly known as quantum mysticism. He has expressed support for topics such as parapsychology, water memory and cold fusion, which has made him a focus of criticism from fellow scientists.