Dr Paul Cook
Telephone: +44 020 7848 2366
Email: paul.cook@kcl.ac.uk
Office: S4.09
Title: Lecturer in Theoretical Physics
Personal Website
Biography
Paul P. Cook has been a fixed-term lecturer in the Department of Mathematics since September 2008. He read physics at Oriel College at the University of Oxford and graduated with his BA in 1999. He then worked in a number of roles outside academia before taking his MSc in theoretical physics at King's College London. Under the supervision of Professor Peter West he went on to complete his PhD thesis on the symmetries of M-theory in the mathematics department.
He was awarded a two-year fellowship in 2006 by the EU Superstrings network where he worked with the research group of Professor Augusto Sagnotti at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and the group of Professor Massimo Bianchi at Universita di Roma "Tor Vergata". He currently lectures in the department on an undergraduate course in classical mechanics (course name "Intermediate Dynamics") and a masters course introducing differential geometry (course name "Manifolds").
Research Interests
Paul's research has focused on the role played by generalised Kac-Moody algebras in high energy physics, in particular the algebra known as E(11). His research interests extend beyond Kac-Moody algebras and include gravity theories, supersymmetry, superstring theory, bosonic string theory, M-theory, dualities/symmetries, the sporadic groups and representation theory.
Selection of Publications