David Ridout's Homepage
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This is my webpage. You can tell that it's mine because it has a picture of me (working hard). In fact, due to widespread criticism and underhanded name-calling, I've added a more recent picture (still working hard). I'm a mathematical physicist, which is a concise way of saying that I study the mathematical structures that underlie my favourite physical theories. These include conformal (quantum) field theories and their relation with string theory, integrable models, and anything else that we can think of. Pretty much anything that involves cool math is fine with me.
You can find copies of my publications as well as (hopefully) current CVs here:
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If you'd like to see some of my favourite pictures, try the link below. I can guarantee that I don't appear in any of the photos that I took. I can't guarantee, however, that you will be able to tell a priori which photos were taken by me. Such is life...
Penny and David's Photos
If you wish/need to contact me, you can send me an email at  , or in person at:
Theory Group,
Building 2a,
DESY,
Notkestraße 85, D-22603, Hamburg, Germany.
Bureau: 206, Phone: (+49 40) 8998 2396.
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Personal Information
I'm an Australian, a sandgroper from Perth. You can tell this by my impeccable spelling. I graduated from Rossmoyne Senior High School before starting a BSc at Murdoch University. A few years later I found myself burdened with a double degree in mathematics and physics (and 3/4 of a degree in chemistry). Embracing the financial poverty that was now my destiny, I completed an honours degree in operator theory and three-body quantum scattering. I then moved on to the University of Western Australia (who will no doubt complain that I haven't capitalised the "T" in "the") where I occupied myself with a masters degree in the theory of topological chaotic dynamics and its application to noise reduction algorithms.
I then moved to Adelaide to start a PhD at the University of Adelaide. There I was introduced to the wonderful world of conformal field theory, and tried in vain to pick up the rudiments of string theory. With a little Lie theory, algebraic topology, differential geometry, and commutative algebra, I wrote a thesis on D-brane charges and fusion rings in Wess-Zumino-Witten models. The last two years of my doctoral studies were completed as a guest at La Trobe University in Melbourne, without whose generosity things would have been rather difficult.
I then moved to Québec as a postdoc with Pierre Mathieu. There I worked on extending the chiral algebras of various conformal field theories, and made some forays into the world of logarithmic conformal field theory. I also managed to find time to try a bit of skiing and skating, though the intricate art of curling remained elusive. As did a solid grasp of the french language, or at least the local dialect.
Now, I'm a postdoc at DESY, Hamburg, with Jörg Teschner. I'm continuing my romping in logarithmic conformal fields, whilst branching out into the wider world of deforming conformal field theories, integrable models, and (oooh scary) the geometric Langlands correspondence. With any luck, I'll have ample opportunity to sample the joys of living in continental Europe, with its myriad of confusing cultures and its myriad of confusing languages. Wish me luck! I promise to return the favour someday...