Michael B. Green
The 18th holder of the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics is Professor Michael B Green. His field is string theory, a somewhat obscure, at least the layman, study of the fundamental make of our existence. Most of us are familiar with atoms, perhaps with the electrons, neutrons and protons that make up the atoms. In addition to these three are hundreds of other so called elementary particles, so called because they clearly are not the most elemementary of particles. Underneath this layer lie quarks, long thought to be the most elementary, but alas, there are too many of them with flavors and anti-quarks, leading to the conclusion that something else lies beneath. That something appears to be strings. Unfortunately, there is not yet any way to observe these entities or even some consequence of their behavior, making them a subject of mathematics and debate only.
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