Sciama taught at
Cornell University,
King's College London,
Harvard University and the
University of Texas at Austin, but spent most of his
career at the
University of Cambridge (1950s and 1960s) and the
University of Oxford as a Senior
Research Fellow in
All Souls College, Oxford (1970s and early 1980s). In 1983, he moved from Oxford to
Trieste, becoming Professor of Astrophysics at the
International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), and a consultant with the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics. He also taught at the
Scuola Normale Superiore of
Pisa. From 1972 to 1973 he was the
Donegall Lecturer in Mathematics at
Trinity College Dublin. During the 1990s, he divided his time between Trieste (with a residence in nearby
Venice) and his main residence at
Oxford, where he was a visiting professor until the end of his life. Sciama made connections among some topics in
astronomy and
astrophysics. He wrote on
radio astronomy,
X-ray astronomy,
quasars, the anisotropies of the
cosmic microwave radiation, the interstellar and intergalactic medium, astroparticle physics and the nature of
dark matter. Most significant was his work in
general relativity, with and without
quantum theory, and
black holes. He helped revitalize the classical relativistic extension to general relativity known as
Einstein-Cartan gravity. Early in his career, he supported
Fred Hoyle's
steady state cosmology, and interacted with Hoyle,
Hermann Bondi, and
Thomas Gold. When evidence against the steady state theory, e.g., the
cosmic microwave radiation, mounted in the 1960s, Sciama abandoned it and worked on the
Big Bang cosmology; he was perhaps the only prominent Steady-State supporter to switch sides (Hoyle continued to work on modifications of steady-state for the rest of his life, while Bondi and Gold moved away from cosmology during the 1960s). During his last years, Sciama became interested in the issue of dark matter in
galaxies. Among other aspects, he pursued a theory of dark matter that consists of a heavy neutrino, certainly disfavored in his realization, but still possible in a more complicated scenario.
Doctoral students Several leading
astrophysicists and
cosmologists of the modern era completed their doctorates under Sciama's supervision, notably: •
George Ellis (1964) •
David Deutsch (1978) Rees, and Carter), has proved of lasting influence.
Publications • • Short (104 pages) and clearly written non-mathematical book on the physical and conceptual foundations of General Relativity. It can be read with profit by physics students before immersing themselves in more technical studies of General Relativity. • •
Awards and honours Sciama was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1983. In 2009, the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the
University of Portsmouth elected to name their new building, and their supercomputer in 2011, in his honour. Sciama has been portrayed in a number of biographical projects about his most famous student, Stephen Hawking. In the 2004 BBC TV movie
Hawking, Sciama was played by
John Sessions. In the 2014 film
The Theory of Everything, Sciama was played by
David Thewlis; physicist
Adrian Melott strongly criticized the portrayal of Sciama in the film. ==Personal life==