Chris J. L. Doran

Chris J. L. Doran is a physicist, Director of Studies in Natural Sciences for Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He founded Geomerics, and is its Chief Operating Officer.

Doran obtained his Ph.D. in 1994 on the topic of Geometric Algebra and its Application to Mathematical Physics. He was an EPSRC Advanced Fellow from 1999 to 2004. In 2004, he became Enterprise Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Doran has been credited, together with Anthony N. Lasenby, Joan Lasenby and Steve Gull,[1][2] for raising the interest of the physics community to the mathematical language and methods of geometric algebra and geometric calculus. These had been rediscovered and refined by David Hestenes, who built on the fundamental work of William Kingdon Clifford and Hermann Grassmann.[3] In 1998, together with Lasenby and Gull, he proposed the gauge theory gravity.[4]

Doran derived a coordinate system for a rotating (Kerr) black hole suited to freely-falling observers, analogous to Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates for the non-rotating case (Schwarzschild spacetime). This is useful for solving the Dirac equation on a Kerr background.[5]

He took a break from academics in 2005, and he subsequently founded the software company Geomerics, making use of his knowledge of mathematics. His research interests relate to applied mathematics and theoretical physics, in particular quantum theory, gravitation, geometric algebra and computational geometry.

Doran has authored more than 50 scientific papers.[6]

  1. ^ John Vince: Geometric Algebra: An Algebraic System for Computer Games and Animation, Springer, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84882-379-2, p. 3
  2. ^ Val L. Fitch, Daniel R. Marlow, Margit Ann Elisabeth Dementi: Critical problems in physics: proceedings of a conference celebrating the 250th anniversary of Princeton university, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-05785-0, p. 165
  3. ^ J. Lasenby, A.N. Lasenby, C.J.L. Doran: A unified mathematical language for physics and engineering in the 21st century, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 358, 21-39 (2000) (abstract, full text)
  4. ^ Lasenby, Anthony.; Chris Doran; Stephen Gull (1998), "Gravity, gauge theories and geometric algebra", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 356: 487–582, arXiv:gr-qc/0405033, Bibcode:1998RSPTA.356..487L, doi:10.1098/rsta.1998.0178
  5. ^ Doran, "New form of the Kerr solution" (2000), Physical Review D
  6. ^ "Dr Christopher JL Donan". Sidney Sussex College. Retrieved 2015-12-07.