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Brian Cox Facts & Worksheets

Brian Cox is a musician-turned-scientist and an advocate of science education and communication.

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Brian Cox is a musician-turned-scientist and an advocate of science education and communication. He is also famous as the presenter of the BBC channel’s science programs such as the series Wonders of…

See the fact file below for more information on Brian Cox or alternatively, you can download our 28-page Brian Cox worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Early Life

  • Brian Edward Cox was born on March 3, 1968, in Chadderton, Oldham, Lancashire, England. 
  • Both his parents worked in the same branch of the Yorkshire Bank. His mother was a cashier while his father worked as a middle manager.
  • Brian recalls pursuing bus and plane spotting, dance, and gymnastics during his childhood.
  • When he was 12, he read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which became a key element in inspiring him to be a physicist.
  • Cox studied from 1979–1986 at the Hulme Grammar School.
  • Cox admitted in interviews that he performed poorly in mathematics and received a grade D. Because of this, he put more effort and time into practicing it.
  • Cox enrolled at the University of Manchester to study physics while also playing in a band.
  • He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with first-class honors.
  • He also studied for his Doctor of Philosophy degree at the same university.
  • In 1998, Cox completed his doctoral thesis entitled Double Diffraction Dissociation at Large Momentum Transfer. He based his thesis on his research on the H1 experiment conducted at the Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage (HERA) particle accelerator.

Career and Contributions

  • Cox was part of the rock band Dare in the 1980s and early ’90s. He was the keyboard player and the group released two albums.
  • Cox later became a member of group D: Ream. They had multiple songs on the UK Charts, including their number one “Things Can Only Get Better”, which was later used as a New Labor election anthem.
  • Cox also played as a keyboardist for the live performance of New Order’s Your Silent Face.
  • Cox wrote the foreword for the official biography of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) because as a youth, he was an ‘obsessive fan’ of the band.
  • He maintained that the songs of OMD shaped his character and inspired him to create music.
  • After departing from the music scene, he focused on his scientific career.
  • In 2005, Manchester University appointed Cox as a professor of particle physics. As of 2021, he still holds this position.
  • From 2005–2013, Cox also held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.
  • Having a talent for presenting, he has been cast in several TV and radio BBC science programs such as Einstein’s Shadow.
  • In 2010, he was invited to the Memorial Lecture of the Royal Television Society where he gave a lecture examining the issues and problems in the way the news media covers science.
  • Cox also presented the television series Wonders of the Solar System, which premiered in 2010, and its follow-up series, Wonders of the Universe shown on March 6, 2011.
  • In the first episode of this show, Cox explained the reason why planets are spheres.
  • In 2012, BBC premiered Wonders of Life which was also presented by Cox. In this series, he explains what physicists think about natural history.
  • Cox was also the presenter for the shows Human Universe (2014) and Forces of Nature (2016).
  • Cox made numerous appearances at TED, giving talks on the Large Hadron Collider and particle physics.
  • Besides being a science broadcaster, Cox also wrote and co-authored various books on physics. Some of his famous books are Why does E=mc2 and The Quantum Universe.
  • Cox also worked on the ATLAS experiment. This project involves using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

Awards

  • The effort and work he put into publicizing and broadcasting science brought him various recognitions and awards.
  • In 2002, Cox was voted into The Explorers Club as an International Fellow.
  • Brian received the Lord Kelvin Award in 2006 from the British Association for his work in promoting science to the public.
  • Cox was also appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 for his services to science.
  • The series Wonders of the Universe won the Best Science/Natural History program award from the Royal Television Society and he also won as the Best Presenter for the series.
  • In July 2012, Cox was given an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield. The award was presented to him by the actor Sir Patrick Stewart.
  • Also in 2012, the Institute of Physics awarded Cox the President’s Medal. He received the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society in the same year.
  • The Open University gave Brian Cox an honorary doctorate for his “Exceptional contribution to Education and Culture.”
  • A humanist, Cox is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.
  • He became an elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.

Personal Life

  • In 2003, Cox married Gia Milinovich in Duluth, Minnesota. She is also a science presenter.
  • Brian and Gia had their first child in 2009. They currently live in Battersea, London, along with Gia’s son from a previous relationship.
  • Cox claims that he has no personal faith but is not an atheist.
  • In June 2019, he explained that science cannot answer every question and that he can’t be sure that there is no God.

Brian Cox Facts Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Brian Cox across 28 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching about Brian Cox a musician-turned-scientist and an advocate of science education and communication.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Brian Cox Facts
  • MusiCox
  • Cox Book
  • Wings of Science
  • Programmed
  • Body of Honors
  • Doctoral Thesis
  • Colliding Particles
  • Seeing Stars
  • Project Spotlight
  • Science I Watch

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Link will appear as Brian Cox Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, January 10, 2022

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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