David Wiltshire

I am a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand. Phone: (+64 3) 364 2473 Fax: (+64 3) 364 2469 Email: David.Wiltshire AT canterbury.ac.nz
My research interests are in general relativity, cosmology and quantum gravity. I am President of the Australasian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation, and a member of the editorial board of Classical and Quantum Gravity.

Amongst the permanent faculty in theoretical physics my research interests most closely intersect with those of Jenni Adams, Dharamvir Ahluwalia and Chris Gordon.

I currently have a research project, Gravitational energy and cosmic structure: What is the Universe made of?, from the Marsden fund administered by the RSNZ. I am supervisor to three PhD students: Ahsan Nazer, Cathy Neill and Nezihe Uzun. Some recent postdocs in our group, who have now moved on, were Teppo Mattsson and Ishwaree Neupane . Emeritus Professor Roy Kerr maintains an active association with our group. We have on-going interactions with Matt Visser's group at Victoria University of Wellington.

Gravitational energy as dark energy

	Slides of 5 lectures at XV Brazilian School on Cosmology and Gravitation, 27-31 August 2012
	Recent papers: Hubble flow variance and the cosmic rest frame - arXiv:1201.5371 (v3 revised 4/3/2013); What is dust? - Physical foundations of the averaging problem in cosmology: Class. Quantum Grav. 28 (2011) 164006; Supernova tests of the timescape cosmology: Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 413 (2011) 367-385; Average observational quantities in the timescape cosmology: Physical Review D 80 (2009) 123512; Cosmological equivalence principle and the weak-field limit: Physical Review D 78 (2008) 084032; Physical Review Letters 99 (2007) 251101; and Astrophysical Journal 672 (2008) L91.

Cosmic Clocks, Cosmic Variance and Cosmic Averages, New J. Phys. 9 (2007) 377, Focus on Dark Energy

The Kerr Spacetime: Rotating Black Holes in General Relativity (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Kerr Fest - In August, 2004, I organised a Symposium on black holes in astrophysics, general relativity and quantum gravity, in celebration of Professor Roy Kerr's 70th birthday. More recently, in December 2009, I organised ACGRG5.

• Career biography

• Student feedback on teaching (UCSA, 2011)

• Publications (or INSPIRE list of papers)

• Past research students

• Official departmental home page

• Ask a Scientist:

  • What caused the big bang? (www.stuff.co.nz, 20 July 2012)
  • What started the big bang? (Otago Daily Times, 11 January 2011)
  • Is infinity something real? (Otago Daily Times, 6 September 2002)

• Other thoughts about science, society and academia:

  • Canterbury Spring: Repositioning our university post 2011 A discussion paper about future options for the University of Canterbury in the aftermath of the 2010-2011 earthquakes.

  • Dead of Night in Are Angels OK? eds P. Callaghan and B. Manhire (Victoria University Press, 2006). A short story by Witi Ihimaera which I helped coauthor ... a poetic description of the Big Crunch and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation make it into science fiction for the first time.

  • How PBRF averages penalise departments with research grant success
    (abridged version in New Zealand Education Review, 19 May 2004; updated 30 May 2007).

  • A debate about the limits, future and threats to science:
    • Puzzles of the sciences endure (The Australian, 4 September 1996)
    • End of science? (Ockham's Razor, ABC Radio, 30 August 1998)
    • John Horgan off the Edge: a dialogue

  • The brain drain:
    Along with other colleagues I left academe in Australia when the Howard Government funding cuts impacted severely on university physics and mathematics departments. These links date from that time:
    • Educating the Minister of Science about Australia's brain drain (the Australian, 3 December 1999)
    • The crisis at ECU (November, 1998)
    • Jim McCarthy's resignation letter (16 July, 1998)