Julian Brown

Biography

I grew up in London and spent three formative years in Cambridge at the famous university that was home to Newton, Turing, Russell, Babbage, Rutherford, Hawking, and many other extraordinary luminaries. But even before then I had read widely about the history of math and science and was excited to learn more. What drew me to mathematics was its crystalline beauty that makes it almost unlike anything else. As Isaac Asimov once observed, most sciences progress through correction as well as extension – Aristotle was corrected by Galileo, Newton by Einstein – but in mathematics there is no significant correction, only extension. Physics, meanwhile, is where mathematics comes alive – and having studied both subjects at Cambridge and spent a career applying them in scientific research at Stanford and UCSF, I have been able to observe first hand how they can both be transformative.

After Cambridge, I spent thirteen years at the BBC making radio programs about advances in science and technology, and have written books about research at the cutting edge of physics. That experience taught me that making difficult ideas genuinely accessible – not just technically accurate but actually understood – is one of the most important skills there is, and one I bring to every tutoring session.

My approach is rooted in that same belief: that every student can absorb difficult material when it’s explained in the right way for them. Having spent several years teaching violin and piano one-on-one, and communicating complex ideas to colleagues, students, and radio audiences throughout my career, I’ve learned to identify where understanding breaks down and to find new paths to the holy grail.