| Matthew W. Choptuik | |
| Nationality: | Canadian |
| Fields: | Theoretical physics |
| Alma Mater: | University of British Columbia |
| Thesis Title: | A Study of Numerical Techniques for Radiative Problems in General Relativity |
| Thesis Url: | https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0085044 |
| Thesis Year: | 1986 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | W. G. Unruh |
| Doctoral Students: | Frans Pretorius |
Matthew William Choptuik (born 1961) is a Canadian theoretical physicist specializing in numerical relativity.
Choptuik graduated from University of British Columbia with a master's degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. advised by William Unruh in 1986. He became an associate professor in 1995 at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999 he became a member of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and in the same year he became a professor at University of British Columbia.
In 1993,[1] he discovered critical phenomena in gravitational collapse[2] via numerical studies. He showed—under non-generic initial conditions [3] —the possibility of the occurrence of naked singularity in general relativity with scalar matter. This had previously been the subject of a bet between Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne and John Preskill. Hawking lost the bet after Choptuik's publication, but renewed it under non-generic initial conditions.[4]
Choptuik was the 2001 awardee of the Rutherford Memorial Medal. In 2003 he received the CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics. In 2003 he became a fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2002, he became an honorary doctor of Brandon University.