Rowan graduated with a Bachelor of Physics at Monash University sometime in the distant past, before spiralling into several decades of industrial automation: mostly writing code for large scale production facilities, debugging code at 3am, and muttering about control systems to confused project managers across Australia and Asia. While others built careers, Rowan built increasingly wild theories about the universe in the margins of engineering notebooks and on the backs of takeaway containers.

These days, he roams free-range in Melbourne, Victoria, where he spends most of his time locked in philosophical combat with the laws of physics, a battle he insists he’s winning. His current obsession (and by “current” we mean 30+ years deep) is a theory that matter is made entirely of light. Specifically: that particles like electrons are just spinning photons trapped in elegant little solitons. Yes, it's as mad as it sounds. And yes, he's done the maths to back it up. Lots of maths.

Rowan’s views on conventional particle physics are best described as “respectfully defiant with mild pyromaniac undertones.” He sidestepped academia early, mostly because he found the mainstream too square, and partly because no institution could handle his preferred lab dress code: dressing gown, goggles, and rage. Instead, he took his ideas underground, or more accurately, into an eastern suburbs study overflowing with textbooks, old printers, and enough scribbled paper to terrify a recycling bin.

When not lecturing the family toaster on the nature of electricity, Rowan lives (under protest) with his beautiful, patient, and slightly suspicious wife, and is the proud father of three delightfully unhinged adult children. He spends his days writing, theorising, muttering “I told you so” at historical physicists, and continuing his lifelong mission: to prove that the universe, when understood properly, is both profoundly beautiful and, in theory, simple.