David Jou

David Jou Mirabent (Sitges, Catalonia, Spain, October 23rd 1953) is a Catalan physicist, poet and essayist, grandson of the sculptor Pere Jou. He has been professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona until september 2018. He is doctor honoris causa of the Universitat de Girona. 
==== Poetry ====
Jou is the author of a wide poetical work, with some thirty titles. The sixteen books published before 2004 were collected in the joint volumes L'èxtasi i el càlcul (Ecstasy and calculation) (2002) and L'huracà sobre els mapes (The hurricane over the maps) (2004). Three major aspects of this poetical work are: 1) the treatment of scientific topics, mainly the beauty revealed by science and the emotions of a researcher’s life (Les escriptures de l’univers, El color de la ciència, Joc d’ombres, Bestiari, Palaus i equacions), 2) the dialogue between science and religion, amongst religions, and between mysticism and modernity (Transfiguracions, Poemes sobre ciència i fe, Poemes de Nadal i de Setmana Santa, La mística dels dies, Cartografies de Déu, Cant espiritual, Trenta poemes sobre el Parenostre i els Salms and the play La Pietat de La Selva del Camp), and 3) a formal research inspired on the forms of nature, the dynamism of cinema and the theories of science, and the architectural and dynamical construction of poetry books, combining visual aspects and conceptual contents (Tapís, Basilisc, Escuma i turbulència). Other three aspects worth of mention are: 4) poetical journalism, stimulated by his fifty-years long poetical collaboration within the weekly El Eco de Sitges, which, with more than 1.600 published poems, has dealt with many marking events of the last half-century, and which has led to the separate publication of several poetry books (La veu dels mapes, la ràbia de la història, L’avinguda i el laberint, Poemes de la revolta catalana); 5) the observation and poetical celebration of territories, mainly Sitges, Barcelona, Venice and Sicily (A la deriva blava, Passeig marítim, Llum de Sitges, Sitges en blau, A Barcelona, Diminuta imatge, Una jornada a Venècia, Palaus i equacions, Una celebració de Sicília), and 6) the influence of cinema as an emotional and imaginative contribution to the life experience (Joc d’ombres, Els ulls del falcó maltès). This poetical work goes in the line of classical Catalan poets, mainly Ramon Llull, Ausiàs March, Joan Maragall, Salvador Espriu, Josep Carner and Pere Gimferrer, and of poets of other languages, mainly Saint John of the Cross, Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Octavio Paz, Ernesto Cardenal, Charles Baudelaire, Saint-John Perse, T. S. Eliot, Rainer María Rilke and Konstantin Kadafis.
Some of his books have been translated into other languages: in English (The scriptures of the Universe, 2007), German (Traumfabrik und Universum, 2006), Spanish (Castilian) (Los ojos del halcón maltés, 2001; Las escrituras del universo, 2003; Luz de Sitges, 2004; Sitges en azul, 2006), French (Les traces de la fugacité, 2003, Lumière de Sitges, 2004), Italian (Palazzi ed equazioni, 2020), Russian (Slovà is ognya i pepla), Hungarian (As univerzum írásai. Versek a tudományról) and Polish (Zapisy Wszechswiata). Some of his poems have inspired composers and singers as Mercè Torrents, Antonio Arias, Fina R. Palau, Sergi Casanelles, Guillem Ramiro, Sergi Roca, Poire Vallvé, Xavier Pagés, anb Pol Requesens Roca.
 
==== Science ====
Prof. David Jou got his Ph D in Physics in the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in 1978. His scientific research has been devoted to non-equilibrium thermodynamics and statistical physics. He has published more than 300 research papers in international scientific journals, and seven books, among which the classical monograph Extended irreversible thermodynamics (in collaboration with Profs. José Casas-Vázquez and Georgy Lebon). Extended thermodynamics enlarges the domain of application of irreversible thermodynamics to fast processes, miniaturized systems, nanostructured materials, and far-from-equilibrium steady states. It enlarges the bridge between macroscopic and microscopic descriptions of physical systems, and provides a deeper understanding of entropy and of the second law of thermodynamics, one of the mot general and fundamental physical laws. His studies on generalized equations of state dependent on the fluxes acting on the system, and the corresponding extension of non-equilibrium thermodynamics consistent with generalized transport laws (of heat, mass, electric charge, linear momentum and so on) are especially well known in the field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. He has taught a diversity of matters as thermodynamics, physics of fluids, statistical mechanics, quantum physics, biophysics, and physics for food sciences. He has translated to Catalan and/or Spanish several books by Stephen Hawking (A brief history of time, The universe in a nutshell, The grand design, …). 
==== Essay ====
A third aspect of the work of David Jou, intermediate between sciences and humanities, is essay. He has published fifteen essays, mainly on science and religion, cosmology, quantum physics, biophysics, time, matter : Matèria i materialisme (1999), El emps i la memòria en la ciència contemporània (2003) (collected later in the volume El laberint del temps, la simfonia de la matèria, 2006), Algunes qüestions sobre ciència i fe (1992), Ciència, fe, poesia (2003), Déu, cosmos, caos. Horitzons del diàleg entre ciència i religió (2008), Reescribiendo el Génesis (2008), Cerebro y universo. Dos cosmologías (2011). He has given more than 500 popularization lectures for a general public, on cosmology, quantum physics, biophysics, science and literature, science and religion. 
He has published some forty papers on historical and cultural aspects of science (mainly on the history of thermodynamics and its cultural ressonance, the relations between science and poetry and of science and theology). He was a collaborator of the suplement on science and technology of the well-known newspaper La Vanguardia from 1983 to 1994, and he was a member of the Consulting board for the stimulus of scientific culture for the minister of culture of the Government of Catalonia from 1986 to 1994.
He has received several research awards, as Rey Juan Carlos I 1986, Ciutat de Barcelona 1993, Medalla Narcís Monturiol 1991, Eduard Fontserè 1982, Premi Crítica Serra d'Or de Recerca 2000. He is a member of the Section of Science and Technology of the Institute for Catalan Studies (the Catalan Academy of language, history and sciences), of the Reial Acadèmia de Doctors, and correspondent member of la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de Madrid and of the Accademia Peloritana de Mesina.
=== Science books === 
* Extended irreversible thermodynamics, Berlín: Springer, 1993, 2001, 2006, 2010 (in collaboration with J. Casas-Vázquez and G. Lebon)(Russian translation: Rasshirennaia Neobratimaia Termodinamika, 2007)
* Understanding nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Foundations, applications, frontiers: Berlín: Springer, 2008 (in collaboration with G. Lebon and J. Casas-Vázquez)
* Thermodynamics of Fluids under Flow Berlín: Springer, 2000, 2011 (in collaboration with J. Casas-Vázquez and M. Criado Sancho)
* Mesoscopic theories of heat transport in nanosystems (in collaboration with A. Sellitto and V. A. Cimmelli): Berlín: Springer, 2016
* Introduction to the thermodynamics of biological processes New York: Prentice Hall, 1990 (in collaboration with J. E. Llebot)
* Mecànica estadística i biologia molecular Barcelona: Publicacions de la UAB, 1986
* Física para las ciencias de la vida, Madrid: Mc Graw-Hill, 1994, 1998, 2009 (con J. E. Llebot and C. Pérez-García)
* Estudis bibliomètrics sobre la recerca en física a Catalunya (in collaboration with Ll. Rovira and P. Senra): Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2001
* Termodinámica química (in collaboration with M. Criado-Sancho and J. Casas-Vázquez): Madrid: Servicio de publicaciones de la UNED, 2011, 2019
* Introducción al mundo cuántico: Barcelona: Pasado y Presente, 2012
=== Poetical works ===
* 1971: Per a no oblidar la llum 
* 1975: Dit de pas
* 1977: Diminuta imatge 
* 1981: Mirall de vellut negre
* 1982: Tapís (edition with engravings of Manuel Capdevila,1993; edition with piano music composed by Mercè Torrents, 2012)
* 1983: Arbre
* 1987: Teoria
* 1988: Joc d'ombres (second enlarged edition, 1999)
* 1990: El color de la ciència (with illustrations of Fernando Krahn)
* 1992: Urpes de fumera
* 1995: Entre el mirall i les ombres. Antologia poètica (with illustrations of Artur Duch)
* 1999: Els ulls del falcó maltès. Poemes sobre cinema
* 1988: Transfiguracions
* 1996: A la deriva blava. Poemes de Sitges
* 1998: Basilisc
* 2000: Passeig marítim i altres poemes de Sitges (edition with engravings of Jordi Catafal, 1998)
* 2002: Bestiari
* 2002: L'èxtasi i el càlcul1​
* 2004: Escuma i turbulència
* 2004: A Barcelona
* 2004: L'huracà sobre els mapes
* 2004: Llum de Sitges (with photographs by Joan Iriarte) (translations to Spanish, French and English 2005)
* 2006: Sitges en blau (with photographs by Joan Iriarte) (Spanish translation, 2007))
* 2007: Les escriptures de l'Univers​ (bilingual Catalan/English edition, second enlarged edition, 2019) (translations to Spanish, German, Russian, Hungarian, Polish and Bulgarian) 
* 2013: Poemes sobre ciència i fe
* 2013: L’avinguda i el laberint: poemes sobre Catalunya i Espanya
* 2014: Poemes de Nadal i de Setmana Santa
* 2015: La mística dels dies
* 2016: Cartografies de Déu
* 2017: Cant espiritual
* 2018: Poemes de la revolta catalana
* 2020: Trenta poemes sobre el Parenostre i els Salms
* 2020: Palaus i equacions. Una celebració de Sicília (Palazzi ed equazioni: una celebrazione della Sicilia), (bilingual Italian/Catalan edition)
=== Essays ===
* 1991: L’escultor Pere Jou
* 1992: Algunes qüestions sobre ciència i fe
* 1999: Matèria i materialisme (translation to Spanish, 2014, and to Chinese, 2018)
* 2001: El temps i la memòria en la ciència contemporània
* 2003: Ciència, fe, poesia
* 2006: El laberint del temps, la simfonia de la matèria
* 2008: Déu, Cosmos, Caos. Horitzons del diàleg entre ciència i religió​ (Spanish translation, 2015)
* 2008: Reescribiendo el Génesis. De la gloria de Dios al sabotaje del universo (Italian translation, 2009) 
* 2010: La expresividad de la Creación (in collaboration with Mònica Rozman)
* 2011: Cerebro y universo. Dos cosmologías 
* 2012: La poesia de l’infinit. Ciència i mística
* 2012: Iniciación al mundo cuántico. De la danza de las partícules a las semillas de las galaxias
* 2013: El laberinto del tiempo (Chinese translation, 2018)
* 2014: Esperances davant d’incerteses. Tecnologia, humanitats i cristianisme en les crisi d’avui
* 2018: Creació: pregàries, himnes, poemes (in collaboration with Pere Carreras)
== References ==
Category:Spanish poets
Category:Spanish-language education
Category:Spanish essayists
Category:1953 births