“I focused on cosmology by chance,” said Dr. George F. R. Ellis, the esteemed South African theoretical cosmologist who was named the 2004 Templeton Prize laureate during a March 17 news conference at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

As Ellis tells it, his scientific interest was piqued as a teenager when he read The Nature of the Physical World, a philosophical book written by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in 1928. “I liked what Eddington wrote, but I didn’t quite know what it all meant,” he recalled, with a chuckle.

Few scientists of his international stature would so blithely admit to youthful ignorance, yet such candor is typical of George Francis Rayner Ellis, 64, who is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

His specialty is general relativity theory, or Einstein’s theory of gravity, and he’s spent decades studying its application to the origin and evolution of the universe. Formerly president of the Royal Society of South Africa and an active member of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), Ellis was also a courageous opponent of apartheid, and the social ills that it engendered within his homeland.

The author and co-author of many books, Ellis is probably best known for his collaboration with Stephen Hawking, with whom he wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time (1973). Of this volume, which is hailed as a scientific masterpiece, Ellis is characteristically wry. “Because of its abbreviated presentation of difficult topics,” he said, “students often refer to it as the ‘yellow peril.’”

A refreshing combination of genius and humility, Ellis is now laureate of the Templeton Prize for Progress toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, which was created by global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton and first awarded in 1973. Valued at 795,000 pounds sterling, more than $1.4 million, it is the world’s largest monetary award given annually to an individual. The Duke of Edinburgh will present the prize to Ellis in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace on May 5. Recent winners include Freeman Dyson, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, and Holmes Rolston III.

In retrospect, that Ellis was destined to accomplish great things seems obvious, given his Johannesburg upbringing in a household which was keenly concerned with education and issues of social justice. His father was the editor of a liberal Johannesburg newspaper, The Rand Daily Mail. Its pages so angered conservatives that when the Nationalist Party came to power, the paper was immediately shut down. “Dad was ahead of his time,” Ellis explained. And his mother was a member of the Black Sash, an early women’s movement that vigorously protested government policies such as apartheid.

When still a youth, Ellis dreamed of being an architect and spent a year studying architecture at the University of Cape Town before graduating with a physics degree in 1960. At Cambridge University, he studied both philosophy and relativity theory, before settling into work on cosmology. After receiving his Ph.D. in applied mathematics and theoretical physics in 1964, Ellis was appointed a Cambridge University lecturer.

His students from that time recall Ellis as a stimulating professor.

“He was excited about the material, clear in his teaching and very deep in his approach,” said Dr. William Stoeger, now a staff astrophysicist with the Vatican Observatory Research Group, located at University of Arizona in Tucson. “Yet, Dr. Ellis was always very approachable and interested to engage personally with his students.”

Ellis returned to South Africa in 1974 to teach at the University of Cape Town. While solidifying his reputation as an expert in general relativity theory, Ellis also began to criticize the Nationalist Party for its inhumane system of apartheid. Three years later, along with other colleagues, he wrote The Squatter Problem in the Western Cape, a treatise describing how government ignored the suffering of homeless people. Low Income Housing Policy in South Africa, an analysis of the downtrodden in Cape Town, followed in 1977 and was promptly denounced on the floor of Parliament – something that still makes Ellis proud.

“For the longest time, apartheid was very successful in keeping itself hidden. It was an appalling situation, yet it was very possible for many white South Africans not to know exactly what was going on,” Ellis said. In addition to writing books, Ellis took his findings on the road to churches and civic groups. “My slide show wasn’t an emotional thing, but consciousness raising. It had lots of tables and graphs that simply proved how many black people needed homes.”

Such care in presenting evidence is a hallmark of his inductive method. Indeed, Ellis is renowned for his impatience with far-flung theories which can’t be corroborated with any direct experimentation.

“I’m having a debate with Martin Reese right now, in fact, about multiverses. A fascinating idea but not, I think, a scientifically testable theory,” he said. “There are some things we might get to know, others that we probably won’t. I keep coming back to the idea of checking the limits of observation. Some of my colleagues find this a bit irritating.”

Describing himself as a moral realist, Ellis believes that the rapport between science and theology is frequently strained by a propensity towards “over-claiming” by participants on both sides of the debate. “First the theologians did it, and more recently, scientists are doing the same thing. Such over-claims come about when you take the thing you are an expert in and act as if it’s the only thing that matters.”

In the late 1980’s, Ellis reencountered his former student, William Stoeger, at a scientific meeting in Baltimore. Stoeger asked him to become involved in a series of conferences entitled “Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action,” co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, which is affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Ellis accepted the invitation, with life-changing results, as these conferences have occasioned some of his most recent publications.

His book On the Moral Nature of the Universe (1996), co-written with Nancey Murphy, addresses both scientific and theological questions including the origin of the universe or how the human mind functions. In 2002, he edited The Far Future Universe, a book of essays that consider the future from cosmological, biological and theological perspectives.

“It’s important to balance hope and rationality,” he said. Ellis plans to maintain this balancing act personally with monies he’ll receive from the Templeton Prize, splitting it between various projects. Playfully alluding to the investment acumen of his patron, Ellis said, “I will be following Sir John in trying for maximal strategic advantage.”

He eagerly anticipates making grants to his alma mater, the University of Cape Town; to B.I.G., the Basic Income Grant Campaign, an organization that is attempting to alleviate South African poverty; and to A.S.S.E.T., the Association for Educational Transformation, which provides school fees and counseling to impoverished black youth in the Cape Town area.

“The way in which science and religion by and large complement each other is becoming ever clearer, so it’s a good time to look at these issues,” Ellis concluded. “I am humbled and delighted to receive this prize.”

To receive your personal, free monthly copy of Milestones either by direct mail or by e-mail, please forward your request and address to: Milestoneseditor@Templeton.org

Stephen Henderson is a freelance writer based in New York and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun and Religion News Service.

Milestones is a publication of the John Templeton Foundation.

Think You Know How the World Began? Prove It!

Champion of Observational Cosmology wins 2004 Templeton Prize

Champion of Observational Cosmology wins
2004 Templeton Prize