Clifford Martin Will is a Canadian born mathematical physicist who is well known for his contributions to the theory of general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

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Will was born in Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. In 1968, he earned a B.Sc. from McMaster University

McMaster University

McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...

. At Caltech

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

, he studied under Kip Thorne

Kip Thorne

Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist, known for his prolific contributions in gravitation physics and astrophysics and for having trained a generation of scientists...

, earning his Ph.D. in 1971. He has taught at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 and Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, and since 1981 he has been on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

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Will's theoretical work has centered around Post-Newtonian expansion

Post-Newtonian expansion

Post-Newtonian expansions in general relativity are used for finding an approximate solution of the Einstein equations for the metric tensor. The post-Newtonian approximations are expansions in a small parameter, which is the ratio of the velocity of matter, forming the gravitational field, to the...

s of approximate solutions to the Einstein field equation, a notoriously difficult area which forms the theoretical underpinnings essential for such achievements as the indirect verification by Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor

Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr.

Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."...

 of the existence of gravitational radiation from observations of a binary pulsar

Binary pulsar

A binary pulsar is a pulsar with a binary companion, often a white dwarf or neutron star. Binary pulsars are one of the few objects which allow physicists to test general relativity in the case of a strong gravitational field...

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Will's book reviewing experimental tests of general relativity is widely regarded as the essential resource for research in this area; his popular book on the same subject was listed by New York Times as one of the 200 best books published in 1986.

Will was elected to the National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

 in 2007.

Will is the editor-in-chief of IOP

IOP

IOP is a three-letter acronym or initialism which may refer to:* Inanimate Objects Party, an absurdist political party at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...

 Publishing's journal Classical and Quantum Gravity

Classical and Quantum Gravity

Classical and Quantum Gravity is a peer-reviewed journal that covers all aspects of gravitational physics and the theory of spacetime.Its scope includes*Classical general relativity*Applications of relativity*Experimental gravitation...

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Bibliographic information

According to the NASA ADS database, the h-index

H-index

The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...

of Prof. Will is 36.

External links

• http://physics.wustl.edu/cmw
• Classical and Quantum Gravity