the surface of a dark energy star, which may explain the strong positron annihilation radiation observed coming from the central region of our galaxy. Chapline's interest in quantum gravity dates from the time when as a teenager he wrote Richard Feynman a letter about the problem of quantum propagation in a gravitational field. Because quantum mechanics is intrinsically non-local while the equivalence principle is local there is a tension between quantum mechanics and general relativity that has not yet been resolved. As a result of his letter Feynman invited the 15-year-old Chapline to have lunch at Caltech. Chapline and Feynman talked often about physics in the following years, particularly when he was a graduate student at Caltech (see photo). Feynman reportedly helped Chapline get his first job, as an assistant professor at UC Santa Cruz. Chapline earned a B.A. in mathematics at UCLA in 1961. He was a member of the 1959 UCLA Putnam Competition team which scored 3rd in the nation. He earned a PhD in physics from Caltech in 1967. See also Robert B. Laughlin Dark energy Superconductor Fission-fragment rocket References Sources George Frederick Chapline Jr., Marquis Who's Who TM. Marquis Who's Who, 2009. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, 2009 Document Number: K2016377061 (fee required); accessed 2009-10-22 via Fairfax County Public Library. External links Three cosmic enigmas, one audacious answer, a New Scientist item about Chapline's proposals The Blackhole of Chapline, from the blog of Jacques Distler, a physicist who sometimes discusses fringe physics Chapline: black holes don't exist, from the blog of Lubos Motl, another physicist who sometimes discusses fringe physics What Lies Beneath, popular commentary about the fringe speculations of Laughlin and Chapline 21st-century American physicists 1942 births Living people Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory staff University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty People from Teaneck, New Jersey Theoretical physicists