Lui Lam

Lui Lam, physicist and humanist, obtained his BS (with First Class Honors) from the University of Hong Kong, MS from University of British Columbia, and PhD from Columbia University. He did his PhD thesis at Bell Labs under Philip Platzman, student of Richard Feynman. He is Professor of Physics at San Jose State University, California, and Adjunct Professor at both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Association for Science and Technology.

Lam invented BOWLIC (1982), one of three existing types of liquid crystals in the world; ACTIVE WALK (1992), a new paradigm in complex systems; and two new disciplines--HISTOPHYSICS (2002) and SCIENCE MATTERS (2008). He published 14 books and over 170 scientific papers; the books include "Introduction to Nonlinear Physics" (1997), "Nonlinear Physics for Beginners" (1998), "This Pale Blue Dot" (2004), "Science Matters" (2008), "Arts: A Science Matter" (2011), and "All About Science: Philosophy, History, Sociology & Communication" (2014).

He is the founder of the International Liquid Crystal Society (1990); cofounder of the Chinese Liquid Crystal Society (1980); founder and editor of two book series, "Science Matters" (World Scientific) and "Partially Ordered Systems" (Springer). His current research is in science matters (scimat), histophysics, and complex systems; scimat website: www.sjsu.edu/people/lui.lam/scimat. Email: lui2002lam@yahoo.com.