Professor George F. R. Ellis is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, South Africa. His professional research work has been in relativity theory and cosmology, complexity studies, and the brain. He has been a University Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and Professor of Cosmic Physics at the International School of Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy, as well as holding many visiting Professorships at Universities worldwide. He is a Fellow and past Council member of the Royal Society of South Africa, a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Science, and Editor in Chief of the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation. He has published over 300 scientific papers, mainly on relativity and cosmology.
Professor Ellis is interested in the science-religion field overall, and took part in the Vatican Observatory/CTNS series of workshops. His views are set out in his book with Nancey Murphy, On the Moral Nature of the Universe (see below). Professor Ellis has received many awards, including the Star of South Africa Medal awarded by President Mandela, the Gold Medal of the South African Academy of Science, and the Templeton Prize. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 2007.
Recent publications include
- Flat and Curved Space-Times, with R M Williams (Oxford University Press, 1988; revised version, 2000).
- The Renaissance of General Relativity and Cosmology, with A Lanza and J Miller (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
- Science Research Policy in South Africa (Royal Society of South Africa, 1994).
- The dynamical systems approach to cosmology, with J Wainwright (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- N Murphy and G F R Ellis: On the Moral Nature of the universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1996).
- Is The Universe Open or Closed? The Density of Matter in the Universe, with P Coles (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
- G F R Ellis (ed): The Far Future Universe, (Templeton Foundation Press, 2002)
- The Universe Around Us: An Integrative View of Science and Cosmology, web notes at Mathematics Department, University of Cape Town.
