R.I.P. John D Barrow (1952-2020)
My heart is filled with sorrow as I find myself having to pass on some very sad news. I have just heard of the death, yesterday, at the age of 67, of esteemed physicist, mathematician, author and polymath John Barrow. With his passing, one of cosmology’s brightest lights has gone out.
John Barrow was my thesis supervisor. Words can’t express how much I owe him for his advice and encouragement not only during my graduate studies but also throughout the 35 years that have elapsed since I started my career, as a research student at Sussex University.
John had an extraordinary mind that combined immense mathematical gifts with an encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of literature and a wonderful flair for writing. He wrote dozens of books and a theatre play as well as hundreds of scientific articles. He was a whirlwind of ideas who had an uncanny knack of finding clever ways to crack previously unsolved problems. That he was happy to share these ideas with his students is a credit to his intellectual generosity. He inspired dozens of researchers early in their careers and continued to inspire them when they became not so young.
On a personal level, John was rather reserved and, despite his being a talented and confident public speaker, I always felt he was a rather shy person. He was a committed Christian and a regular churchgoer though he didn’t talk much about his private religious beliefs in the Department.
It is also interesting that, despite writing a number of superb popular books, giving public lectures and being a regular guest on radio programmes he steadfastly refused to appear on television. He just didn’t want to become a TV celebrity, though I suspect that if he did he would have been rather good at it.
Although I didn’t see as much of him in recent years as I would have liked, John was a member of the RAS Club which gave me the opportunity to see and talk to him fairly frequently. I always found him a very agreeable dining companion. We usually discussed sport on such occasions rather than science, actually. John was a talented middle-distance runner in his younger days and he gave me a lot of advice about training, etc, when I started running marathons. We also shared an interest in football – at which he was rather good, having had a trial for Chelsea Juniors – and we played together quite a few times in Sussex days. I remember him as a quality midfielder with a terrific engine, though he was not a natural goalscorer.
John also had a very dry and sometimes lugubrious sense of humour. I remember sending him a congratulatory email in 2003 when I found out he had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He replied thanking me but pointing out his joy at having been elected was tempered by the fact that the first official communication he got from Carlton House was a rather substantial bill for the subscription and a form on which to enter details to be used in an obituary.
It was through the RAS Club that I first heard, about a year ago that John was suffering from cancer. For a time he responded well to treatment but a few weeks ago I heard that his condition had deteriorated to the extent that only palliative care was possible. That news came as a shock as he always seemed so healthy and ageless that one imagined him to be indestructible. Today’s news was not unexpected but still distressing. The end came more quickly than we imagined but at least he was at home among his loved ones when he passed away.
I send heartfelt condolences to Elisabeth and the rest of John’s family, and friends and colleagues at Cambridge and elsewhere.
UPDATE: An obituary of John, written by Michael Rown-Robinson, is now available online on the Guardian website.
Rest in peace, Professor John D Barrow FRS (1952-2020).
In the Dark 
September 27, 2020 at 7:59 pm
John Barrow’s papers about “Chaos in the Einstein equations” (BKL, Misner modes) influenced me quite a lot when I chose a thesis subject at the Niels Bohr Institute many years ago … nobody in Copenhagen was doing anything like that …but I was stubborn and pursued it (with support from Bernard Jones and Holger Bech Nielsen) I met John many times over the years to various conferences and workshops ! Sad news. Sincerely Svend E. Rugh (Copenhagen) [ e.g. on facebook under name “Svend Rugh ” ]
September 27, 2020 at 8:00 pm
Oh, I am sorry. This is sad news. Condolences to his family and friends.
September 27, 2020 at 8:31 pm
This is such sad news. Far too young. I have many fond memories of scientific discussions, always conducted with his characteristic modesty and diffidence. He will be fondly remembered by so many people.
September 27, 2020 at 8:41 pm
Dick Fong knew John from his Maths degree at Durham in the early 1970s but John had left before I joined Durham Cosmology Group in 1976. But I did meet him during his visits back to Durham afterwards. Lovely chap taken from us too soon. RIP
September 27, 2020 at 9:24 pm
That’s a loss, and relatively young too.
September 27, 2020 at 9:25 pm
I met John and knew him briefly in Oxford where he completed his PhD with Denis Sciama (who of course supervised an extraordinary number of outstanding research students). John was a very nice chap. And an outstanding scientist and mathematician.
September 27, 2020 at 9:41 pm
V sad news. He also had a huge interest in the history of 20th century science, especially cosmology. Whenever I visited Cambridge, he always took the time to meet for coffee and shoot the breeze about figures like McCrea and Pryce. Can’t believe he is no longer with us.
September 27, 2020 at 9:50 pm
I had two courses with him on the MSc in 1987-88 but I’m not sure I ever met him afterwards, so I remember him as very young (and indeed he was only 35 at the time). He also has a legacy of many ‘popular science’ books, most of which I’ve bought over the years, and I still have a fair amount of them to read.
September 27, 2020 at 9:51 pm
I had two courses with him on the MSc in 1987-88 but I’m not sure I ever met him afterwards, so I remember him as very young (and indeed he was only 35 at the time). He also has a legacy of many ‘popular science’ books, most of which I’ve bought over the years, and I still have a fair amount of them to read. I remember McCrea from Sussex as well, a really friendly man to the new students.
September 27, 2020 at 10:56 pm
John certainly managed his work-life balance better than most. He put in full hours at work but was never there after 6pm or at weekends. I think that’s a valuable lesson for younger researchers.
September 27, 2020 at 11:19 pm
Thank you for the very kind words about my dad.
September 28, 2020 at 3:11 pm
[…] A blog about the Universe, and all that surrounds it « R.I.P. John D Barrow (1952-2020) […]
September 28, 2020 at 3:16 pm
It’s desperately sad news. My entire nine-year postdoc career was spent at Sussex within his group (partly overlapping with Telescoper himself) and was completely transformational for me. Everyone had considerable freedom to work on whatever they found interesting, and could always rely on pinpoint advice from John on essentially any topic. As Peter says, he was a whirlwind of ideas. I remember that his PhD students often found this difficult; they’d enter his office seeking advice on some technical detail of their work, and leave in possession of four entirely novel research projects. Every week!
Whatever he did — science, education, sport, writing — it was always done with excellence. Absolutely everything. An incredible phenomenon.
September 30, 2020 at 9:10 pm
It is indeed so sad. Like Telescoper and the ex students and friends in this thread, I so much appreciated, not just his amazing intellect, both creative and polymathic (and his memory for scientific and historical details: so many anecdotes!) but his wonderful personality: always so friendly, approachable and helpful.
Jeremy Butterfield
October 2, 2020 at 10:15 am
I first met John about 30 years ago. I got to know him first as teacher, then as a scientist and an advisor and over the years as a person. I keep thinking of the times we relaxed over coffee, tea, or a glass of wine, chatting about research, science, politics, history, or sports. One could spend hours talking with John without noticing how much time has gone by. It is very hard to realise that he is gone and I will miss him.
October 2, 2020 at 5:47 pm
“Maximum Force and Naked Singularities in Higher Dimensions” was the last, or among the very last, papers that I handled for John Barrow. It will be published in the October Special Issue of Int. J. Mod. Phys. D. under my editorship. I am sad to hear the news of his passing to another realm.
If one of his close friends would like to write a page or two — or 10 — about John and his Physics for the October Special Issue of IJMPD please send it to me under my editorial hat. The deadline is 15 October 2020.
October 3, 2020 at 1:10 pm
John was brilliant and kind: two of the most precious things to find, and not so often in the same person. We are all bereft.
October 16, 2020 at 4:30 pm
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April 3, 2021 at 12:21 am
So very sad. He was my lecturer and part time mentor in the early 1980s when at Sussex. I was part of the now “famous” soccer match where John scored the goals. I always enjoyed his book, and found him quite humble when grilling him on various points. I loved his cosmology course for grad students, although the viva bore no reflection on his lecture material. He just wanted to assess how you approach problems in general, rather than repeating back what you had heard. I was close to Denis Sciama in times past, and he spoke very highly of John. Right from the first day of working with him, Denis felt he had more to learn from John than the other way around. Denis would never tell me who was his best or favourite student, simply that he had learnt much from all of them. I mourn them both…
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January 24, 2022 at 9:59 pm
Polybags employed John Barrow’s mother as a bag machine operator in the late 1960’s and early ’70’s and John Barrow was employed by Polybags in the school holidays. He produced manually a very comprehensive price list for various sizes, thicknesses and quantities of polythene bags. I remember him with pleasure and awe
July 24, 2022 at 12:36 pm
[…] student to enjoy their PhD. I certainly enjoyed mine and I am immensely grateful to my supervisor, who is alas no longer with us, for being so kind and supportive to me during the difficult times as well as giving me such […]