Christopher Pethick graduated with a D.Phil. in 1965 from the University of Oxford, and he had a research fellowship there until 1970. During the years 1966-1969 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he joined the teaching faculty in 1970, becoming Professor of Physics in 1973. Following periods spent at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow and at Nordita (Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics), Copenhagen, as a visiting scientist, he accepted a permanent position at Nordita in 1975, and divided his time for many years between Nordita and the University of Illinois. Apart from the subject of the present book, Professor Pethick's main research interests are condensed matter physics (quantum liquids, especially 3He and 4He and superconductors) and astrophysics (particularly the properties of dense matter and the interiors of neutron stars). He is also the co-author of Fermi Liquid Theory: Concepts and Applications (1991).
