Richard A. Muller

Richard A. Muller
Muller explaining antimatter
Born	(1944-01-06) January 6, 1944 (age 73)
Residence	Berkeley, California
Nationality	American
Occupation	Professor, scientist

Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944) is an American physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Most recently, in early 2010, Muller and his daughter Elizabeth founded the group Berkeley Earth, an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit aimed at addressing some of the major concerns of the climate change sceptics, in particular the global surface temperature record.

Muller, who grew up in the South Bronx, attended public schools in New York City, including PS 65 (on 141st St), Junior High School 22 (on 161st St), and the Bronx High School of Science. Muller obtained an A.B. degree at Columbia University (New York) and a Ph.D. degree in physics from University of California, Berkeley. Muller began his career as a graduate student under Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez performing particle physics experiments and working with bubble chambers. During his early years he also helped to co-create accelerator mass spectrometry and made some of the first measurements of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background.

Subsequently, Muller branched out into other areas of science, and in particular the Earth sciences. His work has included attempting to understand the ice ages, dynamics at the core-mantle boundary, patterns of extinction and biodiversity through time, and the processes associated with impact cratering. One of his most well known proposals is the Nemesis hypothesis suggesting the Sun could have an as yet undetected companion dwarf star, whose perturbations of the Oort cloud and subsequent effects on the flux of comets entering the inner Solar System could explain an apparent 26 million year periodicity in extinction events.