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Neurologist and Author Oliver Sacks Dead at 82
Physician, writer and humanist Oliver Sacks has died of cancer at age 82. Sacks was famous for "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" and other books, including his account in "Awakenings" (later made into a well-recieved film) of administering treatment which resulted in several patients emerging from their comas. The Guardian reports: When he revealed that he had terminal cancer, Sacks quoted one of his favourite philosophers, David Hume. On discovering that he was mortally ill at 65, Hume wrote: “I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.
“I am ... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.”
I read "Uncle Tungsten" recently and was enthralled. His childhood adventures are completely impossible in today's collective cultural nervous breakdown. As a result, intellects such as his, with concomitant advances in knowledge, are smothered. We are doomed to suffocating stagnation.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I was so sad to hear of his passing, though not unexpected, and while he led a full life, we still lost him too early.
While at the University of Texas at Austin (c. 2000), my then girlfriend, now wife and I went to see him speak in the largest lecture hall (in Welch). We arrived about an hour early, and found to our surprise, all of our smartest friends already in attendance. None of us had coordinated with the others, and while from a wide range of majors (EE, Comp Sci, Biology, Psyc.) we just showed up, early. Be the end people were piled in every conceivable walkway, door way, broom closet, and well out into the halls to hear Dr. Sacks speak. His books are wonderful, but this was a fantastic experience that I will never forget.