Richard H. Price Professor Relativistic Astrophysics. Relativity B. Eng. Phys., 1965, Cornell University Ph.D., 1971, California Institute of Technology Postdoctoral, 1971, California Institute of Technology Office : 215 South Physics Phone : (801)581-8691 Email : rprice@physics.utah.edu

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My primary field of research interest is relativistic gravitation (i.e., Einstein's general relativity) and its application to astrophysics. Since the middle 90s I have been focusing in particular on the black hole collisions that are the most exciting potential sources of gravitational waves that might be detectable with such instruments as the US LIGO project. Computing such collisions is also considered the "holy grail" of numerical relativity (the solution of Einstein's equations on supercomputers). Like much of modern day research, this work is done in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions. I have ongoing collaborations with the groups at the Albert Einstein Institute, at Theoretical Astronomy and Astrophysics in Tübingen, at the University of Cordoba , Argentina, and especially with Jorge Pullin at LSU. I am a fellow of the American Physical Society.

I am also interested in applying the methods of physics and of applied mathematics to a much broader set of problems. This (partially) explains why I am an Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and worked with the Center for Engineering Design and Sarcos Corporation on micromechanical devices.

I have also been interested in innovations in teaching physics and introduced collaborative learning techniques in the introductory calculus-based courses PHYCS 2220. My interest in innovations in teaching and in applying physics to a broad set of projects come together in the Physics of Modern Technology (PMT) program at the University of Utah. In the fall of 2001 I will be teaching PHYCS 4910, a new course in technical communication and scientific judgment. This course will become part of the PMT program, but at least for the present, will be taken by a wide variety of students.

In my spare time I am on the editorial board of the all electronic physics journal New Journal of Physics and I am a Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters for gravitation, and a member (starting January 2003) of the editorial advisory board of American Journal of Physics. I am now (April 2002-April 2003) Chair of The Topical Group in Gravitation, an American Physical Society group specific to my field.

Other of my physics related activities have included a Hollywood movie. (This was a biography of Einstein. I played myself and have been told that I did a believable job.) Very recently I had a brief (one song) musical career as a member of the physics singing group Bernie and the Gravitones.

Books

• Problem Book in Relativity and Gravitation, (with Alan Lightman, William Press and Saul Teukolsky), (Princeton University Press, 1975).
• Black Holes: The Membrane Paradigm, (with K.S. Thorne and D.A. Macdonald), (Yale University Press, 1986).
• The Future of Spacetime, (W.W.Norton, 2002).

Some Recent Research Articles on General Relativity and Astrophysics

• ``Inspiralling black holes: the close limit" (with Gaurav Khanna, John Baker, Reinaldo J. Gleiser, Pablo Laguna, Carlos O. Nicasio, Hans-Peter Nollert, and Jorge Pullin), Phys. Rev. Letters, 83 pp. 3581-3584 (1999).
• ``Quantifying excitations of quasinormal mode system'' (with H.-P. Nollert) Journal of Mathematical Physics 40, pp. 980-1010, Feb. 1999.
• "Gravitational radiation from Schwarzschild black holes; the second order perturbation formalism" (with R. Gleiser, O. Nicasio, and J. Pullin), Physics Reports, 325, 41-81 (2000).
• "Close limit of grazing black hole collisions: non-spinning holes" (with G. Khanna, R. Gleiser and J. Pullin), New Journal of Physics 2, 3, 2000.
• ``Quasi-stationary binary inspiral II: Radiation balanced boundary conditions" (with J. Whelan and W. Krivan), Classical and Quantum Gravity. 17, 4895 (2000).
• ``Tidal interaction in binary black hole inspiral," Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 231101 (2001).

Some Recent Articles on Physics Pedagogy

• ``In-depth problems for collaborative learning,'' in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Undergraduate Physics Education, U. Maryland, July 31--Aug. 3, 1996, (AIP, Woodbury, New York, 1997) p.831.
• ``Aim High and Go Far - Optimal Projectile Launch Angles Greater than 45^o,'' (with Joseph Romano) American Journal of Physics, 66, p. 109, 1998.
• ``Expand your students' universe" (with E. Grover), to appear in American Journal of Physics, October 1999.
• ``A circular twin paradox" (with M.Cranor and E. Heider), American Journal of Physics, 68, pp.1016-1020, 2000.

Some Other Publications of Interest for Various Reasons

• ``Gravitation,'' in Encarta the Microsoft CD-ROM encyclopedia.
• ``The Membrane Paradigm for Black Holes,'' (with K.S. Thorne) Scientific American, 256, 69 (1988).
• ``Detecting Proton Magnetization via ¹³ C-Coupled Relaxation Studies" (with R. Brown and D. Grant) J. Magn. Reson. A110, p. 38 (1994).
• The Wobble Motor: Design, Fabrication and Testing of an Eccentric-Motion Electrostatic Microactuator," (with Jacobsen, S.C.; Wood, J.E.; Rytting, T.R.; Rafaelof, M)., Published in Sensors and Actuators, 20 Nos. 1 & 2, pp. 1-16 (1989).