Paul Halpern, Ph.D., is a professor of mathematics and physics at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His scientific expertise is in time and time travel, extraterrestrial life and new planets, scientific predictions, apocalypse, chaos theory, the Big Bang and early universe. Dr. Halpern has written many books and articles on these subjects but Charlesbridge is glad to publish his first book for children—Faraway Worlds.

Paul was born in Philadelphia and lived there most of his life. He attended Temple University receiving a B.A. in Physics and Math. He went on to study for his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University in New York. After graduating, Dr. Halpern took on a visiting Assistant Professorship at Hamilton College in New York. It was in this liberal arts environment that he started collecting material for a general interest book on the nature of time. This became his first book—Time Journeys (McGraw Hill, 1990).

In addition to many other awards, Dr. Halpern was the recipient of a prestigious 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship Award. He was among 184 artists, scholars, and scientists nationally selected to receive a fellowship from more than 2,800 applicants. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. He uses the fellowship award to examine the history of the notion of higher dimensions in science, as well as the impact of this idea upon popular culture. His research, “The Concept of Dimensionality in Science,” covers the period from the mid-19th century, when the idea of the fourth dimension was first introduced, until the late 20th century, when scientists developed 10 and 11 dimensional models of the universe.

Dr. Halpern has appeared on many television and radio shows, including the PBS series "Future Quest" and the National Public Radio show "Radio Times." His many books have been widely reviewed in such publications as Publishers Weekly, Nature, Scientific American, Sky & Telescope and New Scientist. The Cyclical Serpent (Plenum, 1995) was chosen as one of the best Sci-Tech books of 1995 by Library Journal, and Cosmic Wormholes (Dutton, 1992) was chosen as a main selection of the Astronomy and Natural Science Book Club.

Paul Halpern, Ph.D., lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Books by Paul Halpern, Ph.D.