Ĭox also presented a three-part BBC series called Science Britannica which sees him explore the contribution of British scientists over the last 350 years, as well as the relationship between British science and the public perception thereof.
He co-presents Space Hoppers and has also featured in Dani's House on CBBC. Wonders of Life, which he describes as "a physicist's take on life/natural history", was broadcast in 2013. He presented the five-part BBC Two television series Wonders of the Solar System in early 2010 and a follow up four-part series, Wonders of the Universe, which began on 6 March 2011. Broadcasting Ĭox has appeared in many science programmes for BBC radio and television, including In Einstein's Shadow, the BBC Horizon series, ("The Six Billion Dollar Experiment", "What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity?", "Do You Know What Time It Is?", and "Can we Make a Star on Earth?") and as a voice-over for the BBC's Bitesize revision programmes. He has supervised or co-supervised several PhD students to completion including Tamsin Edwards. He previously held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) advanced research fellowship.Ĭox has co-written several books on physics including Why does E=mc 2? and The Quantum Universe, both with Jeff Forshaw. He worked on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. Career and research Ĭox is a particle physicist at the University of Manchester. His thesis, Double Diffraction Dissociation at Large Momentum Transfer, was supervised by Robin Marshall and based on research he did on the H1 experiment at the Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage (HERA) particle accelerator at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, Germany. After D:Ream disbanded in 1997, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in high-energy particle physics at the University of Manchester. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree with first-class honours. He said of their songs, "They shaped my character and inspired me to make music." Higher education Ĭox studied physics at the University of Manchester during his music career. Cox wrote the foreword of the official Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) biography, Pretending to See the Future (2018), having been an "obsessive fan" of the band in his youth. In 2015, he appeared as a guest keyboardist during a live performance of the song " Your Silent Face" by New Order. He joined D:Ream, a group that had several hits in the UK charts, including the number one " Things Can Only Get Better", later used as a New Labour election anthem, although he did not play on the track. Dare released two albums with Cox – Out of the Silence in 1988 and Blood from Stone in 1991. In the 1980s and early 90s, Cox was a keyboard player with the rock band Dare.
I found out you need to practise." Music He said on The Jonathan Ross Show that he performed poorly on his maths A-level exam: "I got a D . He has stated in many interviews and in an episode of Wonders of the Universe that when he was 12, the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan was a key factor in inspiring him to become a physicist. He attended the independent Hulme Grammar School in Oldham from 1979 to 1986. He recalls a happy childhood in Oldham that included pursuits such as dance, gymnastics, plane and bus spotting.
His parents worked for Yorkshire Bank, his mother as a cashier and his father as a middle-manager in the same branch. Cox was born on 3 March 1968 in the Royal Oldham Hospital, later living in nearby Chadderton from 1971.