physics

R. Keith Ellis

R. Keith Ellis is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand R. Keith Ellis rather than just read about it. In short: Richard Keith Ellis, (born 17 November 1949) is a British theoretical physicist, working at the University of Durham, and a leading authority on perturbative quantum chromodynamics and collider phenomenology. Education Ellis graduated from the University of Oxford (MA 1971, D.Phil. 1974).

Key takeaways

R. Keith Ellis belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect R. Keith Ellis to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of R. Keith Ellis from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard Keith Ellis, (born 17 November 1949) is a British theoretical physicist, working at the University of Durham, and a leading authority on perturbative quantum chromodynamics and collider phenomenology.

Education Ellis graduated from the University of Oxford (MA 1971, D.Phil. 1974). He has held positions at Imperial College, MIT, Caltech, CERN and the University of Rome.

Career and research Ellis went to Fermilab in 1984 and was Head of the Theoretical Physics Department there from 1993 to 2004. In 2015 he moved to the University of Durham in the UK, where he was a professor of Physics and Director of the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology until the end of 2019. Ellis' work is of importance to the study of elementary particles at colliders, such as the Fermilab Tevatron, and the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Ellis has contributed in a substantial way to the interpretation of experiments performed at high energy. Together with Douglas Ross and Tony Terrano he performed the first calculation of jet structure in e+e- annihilation which allowed precise determination of the strong coupling. In addition, with Guido Altarelli and Guido Martinelli he performed a calculation of lepton pair production which allow reconciliation of observed rates with theoretical calculations. He has also co-authored a number of widely read papers on the theory of heavy quark production. He is also co-author for the parton-level Monte Carlo program MCFM. Ellis is the coauthor with W. J. Stirling and B. R. Webber of a book on QCD and collider physics published by Cambridge University Press in 1996.

Honours and awards Ellis was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1988 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2009. Also in 2009, Ellis together with John Collins and Davison Soper won the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, For work in perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics, including applications to problems pivotal to the interpretation of high energy particle collisions. In 2019 he was awarded the Paul Dirac Medal of the Institute of Physics, For his seminal work in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) where he performed many of the key calculations that led to the acceptance of QCD as the correct theory of the strong interaction.

References

External links R. Keith Ellis on INSPIRE-HEP

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. Keith Ellis

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. Keith Ellis claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to R. Keith Ellis before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about R. Keith Ellis ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of R. Keith Ellis

In research: R. Keith Ellis appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses R. Keith Ellis in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: R. Keith Ellis is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, British fellows of the Royal Society, British physicist stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. Keith Ellis outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study R. Keith Ellis in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what R. Keith Ellis means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain R. Keith Ellis out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is R. Keith Ellis in simple terms?

Why does R. Keith Ellis matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study R. Keith Ellis?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on R. Keith Ellis.