A giant, a pioneer in physics died today. John Archibald Wheeler was a genius, an amazing physicist who felt that teaching as well as research was important. His students included Richard Feynman, widely recognized as one of the true geniuses of all time. His contributions to quantum mechanics and relativity were enormous. He invented the term black hole.
Daniel Holz at Cosmic Variance has written one of the finest tributes I have ever read for any person. The field of science is better for having had Wheeler in it. I’m sure his name will be mentioned often and with praise once the Large Hadron Collider is fired up; his work inevitably lead to that fantastic machine and to much of our current understanding of the Universe.
