Posted on 04/14/2008 11:04:50 AM PDT by RightWhale
John Wheeler, giant on whose shoulders we stand, has died at 96.
Which John Wheeler are you referring to???
Who is John Galt, er Wheeler?
The physicist who was the ultimate authority on cosmological matters. Every year somebody mentioned checking with John Wheeler it seemed impossible since John Wheeler was from the sixties and couldn’t possibly still be active, but he was.
John Wheeler physicist? Is there any other?
He might have lived longer if people hadn’t stood on him.
No, there is no other. We’re on our own.
LoL...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gx6EdEawRTXSfpFzV7mtddkPLc3wD901P4SO0
HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. (AP) — Physicist John A. Wheeler, who had a key role in the development of the atom bomb and later gave the space phenomenon black holes their name, has died at 96.
Wheeler, for many years a professor at Princeton University, died of pneumonia Sunday at his home in Hightstown, said his daughter, Alison Wheeler Lahnston.
Wheeler rubbed elbows with colossal figures in science such as Albert Einstein and Danish scientist Niels Bohr, with whom Wheeler worked in the 1930s and ‘40s.
“For me, he was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Max Tegmark told The New York Times.
Born in 1911, Wheeler was 21 when he earned his doctorate in physics from Johns Hopkins University. In the mid-1930s, he traveled to Denmark to study for a year with Bohr, who won a Nobel Prize for his work describing the nature of the atom.
In early 1939, with war looming in Europe, Bohr arrived in the United States with the news that German scientists had split uranium atoms. Working at Princeton, Bohr and Wheeler sketched out a theory of how nuclear fission worked.
During World War II, Wheeler was part of the Manhattan Project, the scientists charged with using nuclear fission to create an atomic bomb for the United States.
Unlike some colleagues who regretted their roles after bombs were dropped on Japan, Wheeler regretted that the bomb had not been made ready in time to hasten the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Joe, had been killed in combat in Italy in 1944.
Wheeler later helped Edward Teller develop the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.
The name “black hole” — for a collapsed star so dense that even light could not escape — came out of a conference in 1967. Wheeler made the name stick after someone else had suggested it as a replacement for the cumbersome “gravitationally completely collapsed star,” he recalled.
“After you get around to saying that about 10 times, you look desperately for something better,” he told the Times.
In his 1998 autobiography, “Geons, Black Holes & Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics,” he wrote that the black hole “teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.”
Among Wheeler’s students in the early 1940s was the future Nobel Prize-winner Richard Feynman.
While he spent most of his academic career at Princeton, Wheeler moved to the University of Texas in 1976 because Princeton’s retirement age was looming.
His wife of more than 70 years, Janette, died in October. He is survived by three children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
What, me worry? We’ve got Ward Churchill, the faculty of the Harvard Law School, the Hillabeast and Dumbhub, The Obamaluna and Lunawife, and the MSM. Why mess with a mere physicist when we have all the libs who have an “eddicasion” know oh so much more than we do?
John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term ‘Black Hole,’ Is Dead at 96
do you suppose this is why he isn't a household name?
Well, now he has some answers. Imagine the shock and awe of that!
Given the popularity of the name John and the plethora of Wheelers in the world, it’s safe to assume that there is in fact more than one John Wheeler.
Looks like he and his wife are together again, for eternity. Amen.
Yes, there’s lots of John Wheelers, maybe thousands, but there is only one THE John Wheeler. If you not familiar with him you have heard someone using his work.
Ahhh...a great mind passes.
From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch
- - - - - -
Scientist-philosopher, teacher-cosmologist, father of the Black Hole, Wheeler's thoughts encompass the entire cosmos from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch.
This exclusive interview with John A. Wheeler was made by Mirjana R. Gearhart of COSMIC SEARCH.
COSMIC SEARCH: You have often commented that the greatest discoveries of science are yet to come. What do you have in mind?
Wheeler: To me, the greatest discovery yet to come will be to find how this universe, coming into being from a Big Bang, developed its laws of operation. I call this "Law without Law".* (*Or "Order from Disorder".)
COSMIC SEARCH: Could you explain further?
Wheeler: One of the biggest problems is how to state the problem. It's an old saying that the minute you can state a problem correctly you understand 90 percent of the problem. One of the greatest problems concerns the meaning of measurement or observation. According to quantum theory, measurements can influence what happens. The fact that it is difficult to talk about this problem in an easy way suggests that we have much to learn.
This is a partial response to your question. Putting it another way: How can we possibly imagine the universe with all its regularities and its laws coming into being out of something utterly helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy and random? ....
More HERE
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.