It's time for a chick to hold the Lucasian Chair

Witten is the leading figure in the superstring approach to quantum gravity, which seeks to unite the two main theories of physics, general relativity and quantum field theory, into one all encompassing theoretical structure. In the Principia Newton discovered a property of gravity that holds for weak gravitational fields famously stating of the ultimate nature of gravity, hypotheses non fingo, that he frames no hypothesis. It was Albert Einstein who developed great insight into the nature of gravitation with general relativity, but the ultimate nature of gravity is still unknown given the incompleteness of Einstein's theory hence the search for quantum gravity.

Witten, whose brother is a writer for the TV show House, is especially noted for the power of his mathematical thinking, himself making important new discoveries in the mathematics underlying string theory in such esoteric aspects of algebraic topology as K-theory and the like.

There would be some irony in Witten taking the chair. Hawking's inaugural lecture provocatively posed the question, "is the end in sight for theoretical physics?" His pessimism for the future of theoretical physics was based on his optimism that N=8 supergravity (where N refers to the number of space-time dimensions the universe has according to the theory) would lead to a consistent theory of quantum gravity. Not a word is devoted to superstring theory, but not long after Hawking spoke the first superstring revolution erupted and supergravity became a back water.

It was Witten who showed that supergravity and superstrings, in the second superstring revolution that he unleashed during the 1990s, were intimately related. However, it was N=11 not N=8 supergravity that was the relevant approach. There would be some neat irony therefore if Witten were to take the chair.

Another candidate is the French mathematician Alain Connes, one of the world's leading mathematicians. He is most well known for his non-commutative geometry and is currently using his insights to develop a rival conception of quantum gravity to superstring theory. But, hey, could you imagine the University of Cambridge handing the Lucasian chair to a Frenchman?

One thing about the Lucasian professorship stands out. It has never been held by a woman throughout its long history. Perhaps now is the time for a woman to occupy this most venerable of scientific chairs. There are some candidates who do readily come to mind.

One possible candidate could well be Fotini Markopolou-Kalamara, a noted researcher in the most well known rival approach to quantum gravity, that being loop quantum gravity. This approach is more favoured by those who have more of a background in general relativity than high energy particle physics or quantum field theory, and given that superstring theory is currently stuck in a morass of universes each with their own laws of physics, might just well be the correct approach, although we should not neglect the more revolutionary twister theory favoured by Hawking's long time colleague Roger Penrose.

The leading female candidate, however, would undoubtedly be Lisa Randall, who currently holds a chair in theoretical physics at Harvard, America's version of Oxford.

Randall has written some of the most widely cited physics papers of recent times, which deal with some of the niceties of string theory such as p-branes and brane-worlds.

There would be a neat symmetry in Randall holding the Lucasian chair.

She is most well known for her work on higher dimensional spaces and string theory, invoking brane-worlds (other universes) to explain the relative weakness of the big G, Newton’s universal constant of gravitation. Although the big G plays a very important role in the large-scale structure of the universe, now we cannot neglect "dark energy" an unknown form of anti-gravity, its small value has always been a source of great mystery.

A female Lucasian chair would be a good way of breaking a hitherto male monopolised professorship in science and may well be a good way to encourage more girls to enter into mathematics and the physical sciences, currently seen as a pursuit for geeky males.

If the TV reality series Beauty and the Geek is any guide this would be what a game theorist would, like, call a win-win outcome or a Nash equilibrium if you will.