Claudia de Rham

Claudia de Rham (born 29 March 1978) is a Swiss theoretical physicist, author, and professor and director of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) at Imperial College London. She was awarded in 2018 the Adams Prize and was elected in 2023 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Quotes

For almost a century the theory of general relativity (GR) has been known to describe the force of gravity with impeccable agreement with observations. ... Far from a purely academic exercise, the existence of consistent alternatives to describe the theory of gravitation is actually essential to test the theory of GR. Furthermore the open questions that remain behind the puzzles at the interface between gravity/cosmology and particle physics such as the hierarchy problem, the old cosmological constant problem and the origin of the late-time acceleration of the Universe have pushed the search for alternatives to GR.
- (2014) . "Massive gravity". arXiv:1401.4173v2 [hep-th]: 6. (186 page preprint; published as article # 7 in (August 2014) "Massive gravity". Living Reviews in Relativity 17 (1): 1–187.

After the Big Bang, the universe expanded and cooled down. And we expect this expansion to gradually slow down because the universe has things like galaxies inside it, and they are attracted to each other by gravity. But in the past 25 years or so, observations have shown precisely the opposite: The expansion of the universe is speeding up. It’s accelerating. This is the concept of dark energy, and it points to something that we are missing in our description of the universe.
Dark energy is sometimes seen as this mysterious, magical source of energy that accelerates the expansion of the universe. But this isn’t really the core of the problem. We can cook something up for dark energy — just as we do for dark matter — and hope we’ll detect it later. It’s not particularly satisfying, but we do this, we’ve done it before. Really, the core of the problem is that there’s a complete mismatch in the amount of dark energy that we need to solve this problem and what is a natural amount of dark energy.
- as quoted by Thomas Lewton in: (August 18, 2020) "Q&A: The Physicist Who Slayed Gravity’s Ghosts. Claudia de Rham showed how theories of “massive gravity” could potentially get rid of the need for dark energy.". Quanta Magazine.

Gravity is the reason why the Universe itself can even exist and evolve. It elevates space and time from mere pieces of scenery into central actors in the unfolding drama of reality. As we embrace gravity, we can't help but also pit ourselves against it: leaping, floating, or flying as we pursue brief moments of freedom from its command. I, for one, have been chasing gravity my entire life—seeking, like so many scientists who have come before me, to unravel its deepest mysteries.
- The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity (pbk ed.). Princeton University Press. 2026. p. 1. ISBN 9780691237503. (232 pages; 1st edition 2024)

... we can never really shield ourselves from gravity. You can think of a Faraday cage for electromagnetism — where you can shield yourself from electromagnetic waves. But that is not the case for gravity. Everyone is connected through gravity.
- (September 26, 2025) "Einstein’s biggest blunder | Claudia de Rham FULL INTERVIEW". The Institute of Art and Ideas (IAI), YouTube. (quote at 2:23 of 25:25; IAI interviews)

A theory of massive gravity is one in which the graviton, the particle that is believed to mediate the force of gravity, has a small mass. This contrasts with general relativity, our current best theory of gravity, which predicts that the graviton is exactly massless. In 2011, Claudia de Rham (Imperial College London), Gregory Gabadadze (New York University) and Andrew Tolley (Imperial College London) revitalised interest in massive gravity by uncovering the structure of the best possible (in a technical sense) theory of massive gravity, now known as the dRGT theory, after these authors.
Claudia de Rham has now written a popular book on the physics of gravity. The Beauty of Falling is an enjoyable and relatively quick read: a first-hand and personal glimpse into the life of a theoretical physicist and the process of discovery.
- Kurt Hinterbichler, (26 March 2025) "review of The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity, by Claudia de Rham". CERN Courier.