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Physicist John A. Wheeler is Dead at 96

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the big-wormhole-in-the-sky dept.

reverseengineer writes "Eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler has died from pneumonia at the age of 96. The coiner of the terms 'black hole' and 'wormhole,' Wheeler popularized the study of general relativity, and advised a distinguished list of graduate students including Kip Thorne and Richard Feynman. Other work included a collaboration with Niels Bohr to develop the 'liquid drop' model of nuclear fission. 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.'"

6 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about Hawking? by Garridan · · Score: 2, Informative

    ugh. s/Steven/Stephen/

  2. You might want to look at his publishing record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    While Hawking has acheived fame for his popular science books, he has contributed immensely to the current state of physics thinking. The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , co-authored with G.F.R Ellis (Cambridge University Press, 1973) is vastly influential.

    I don't get this tendency for people to think that if someone produces popular science books, they must be an intellectual lightweight who can't make real contributions to the field.

  3. Re:Not that great by syrinx · · Score: 3, Informative

    The vowel in question in "Erdos" is an o with double-acute-accent, not an umlaut... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_alphabet if you care. :)

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    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
  4. An author, too by AdamHaun · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wheeler might be better known as part of the Misner/Thorne/Wheeler team that produced the Bible of General Relativity, but he's also the co-author of Spacetime Physics, one of the best SR books I've ever read. It's part of the school of physics textbooks that puts equations in service of language where they belong. If you have a basic physics background and want to learn more about relativity without wading through tons of Lorentz transfomations, give it a try.

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    Visit the
  5. another obit by call+-151 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a nice rememberance of Wheeler from one of his former students at the cosmic variance blog.

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    It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
  6. Poem commemorates Wheeler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    John Archibald Wheeler and the Smoky Dragon, by Jonathan Vos Post