R.I.P. John Wheeler
Posted on April 14, 2008
in sadness, science
John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term ‘Black Hole,’ Is Dead at 96
Dr. Wheeler was a young, impressionable professor in 1939 when Bohr, the Danish physicist and his mentor, arrived in the United States aboard a ship from Denmark and confided to him that German scientists had succeeded in splitting uranium atoms. Within a few weeks, he and Bohr had sketched out a theory of how nuclear fission worked. Bohr had intended to spend the time arguing with Einstein about quantum theory, but “he spent more time talking to me than to Einstein,” Dr. Wheeler later recalled.
Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of Dr. Wheeler, “For me, he was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing.”
Update: Cosmic Variance has a very moving goodbye post by one of Wheeler’s graduate students and friend.
I read biography of wheeler. Though we are not fortunate to have him as teacher, but from his writings we know that wheeler is a Genius and Giant who inspired generations of Physicists.
Radhakrishna
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