Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 29, 2026

Stephen A. Fulling

Stephen Albert Fulling is an American mathematician and mathematical physicist, specializing in the mathematics of quantum theory, general relativity, and the spectral and asymptotic theory of differential operators. He is known for preliminary work that led to the discovery of the hypothetical Unruh effect.

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Stephen Albert Fulling
Born(1945-04-29)29 April 1945
Alma mater
Known forFulling–Davies–Unruh effect
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, Physics
Institutions
Thesis Scalar Quantum Field Theory in a Closed Universe of Constant Curvature  (1972)
Academic advisors
Arthur Wightman

Stephen Albert Fulling (born 29 April 1945, Evansville, Indiana) is an American mathematician and mathematical physicist, specializing in the mathematics of quantum theory, general relativity, and the spectral and asymptotic theory of differential operators.1 He is known for preliminary work that led to the discovery of the hypothetical Unruh effect (also known as the Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect).2

Education and career

After secondary education at Missouri's Lindbergh High School,3 Fulling graduated in 1967 with A.B. in physics from Harvard University. At Princeton University he became a graduate student in physics and received M.S. in 1969 and Ph.D. in 1972.4 His thesis Scalar Quantum Field Theory in a Closed Universe of Constant Curvature was supervised by Arthur Wightman.5 Fulling was a postdoc from 1972 to 1974 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and from 1974 to 1976 at King's College London. At Texas A&M University he joined the mathematics faculty in 19763 and was promoted to full professor in 1984. In addition to mathematics, he holds a joint appointment in physics and astronomy.4

In addition to more than a hundred papers and publications, he has authored two books, Aspects of Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-Time (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Linearity and the Mathematics of Several Variables (World Scientific, 2000).3

In 2018 Fulling was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.3 He has also been elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala.6

Selected publications

Books

Articles

See also

See also

References

References

  1. "Stephen Fulling, Texas A&M University". community.wolfram.com.
  2. Fulling, Davies, and Unruh were in communication, and the full significance of the mathematical phenomenon was unclear until Unruh related it to both temperature and particle detectors. In 2019 Fulling and Wilson suggested that what Davies discovered is a separate effect. Fulling, S A; Wilson, J H (2019). "The equivalence principle at work in radiation from unaccelerated atoms and mirrors" (PDF). Physica Scripta. 94 (1): 014004. arXiv:1805.01013. Bibcode:2019PhyS...94a4004F. doi:10.1088/1402-4896/aaecaa. ISSN 0031-8949. S2CID 21706009.
  3. "Texas A&M Mathematician Stephen Fulling Elected as American Physical Society Fellow". Texas A&M, Science (science.tamu.edu). 31 October 2018.
  4. "Stephen Fulling". Mathematics, Texas A&M University (math.tamu.edu).
  5. Stephen Albert Fulling at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. "Fulling's Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). math.tamu.edu. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
External links