Heinz Pagels


Heinz Rudolf Pagels was an American physicist, an associate professor of physics at Rockefeller University, the executive director and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, and president of the International League for Human Rights. He wrote the popular science books The Cosmic Code, Perfect Symmetry, and .

Biography

Pagels obtained his PhD in elementary particle physics from Stanford University under the guidance of Sidney Drell. His technical work included the Physics Reports review articles Quantum Chromodynamics and "Departures from Chiral Symmetry". A number of his published papers dealt with the source of the mass of elementary particles in quantum field theory, especially the Nambu–Goldstone realization of chiral symmetry breaking. He also published a visionary paper entitled "Origin of the Universe as a quantum tunneling event" that prefigured later work done in the field. The list of his graduate students includes Dan Caldi, Saul Stokar and Seth Lloyd.
Pagels was an outspoken critic of those he believed misrepresented the discoveries and ideas of science to promote mysticism and pseudoscience. In his capacity as executive director of the New York Academy of Science in 1986, Pagels submitted an affidavit in a case involving a former member of the Transcendental Meditation movement who had sued the organization for fraud.
As president of the International League for Human Rights, Pagels worked to support freedom for researchers in other countries. He was a fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Science and Law Committee of the New York Bar Association, and a trustee of the New York Hall of Science.
In 1969, Pagels married Elaine Pagels, later theology professor, author, and MacArthur Fellow. Their son Mark died in 1987 after a four-year illness. The couple had an adopted daughter Sarah and an adopted son David.
Heinz Pagels died in 1988 in a mountain climbing accident on Pyramid Peak, a 14,000-foot summit 10 miles to the southwest of the Aspen Center for Physics, where he spent his summers. Many writers of his obituary quote a dream he wrote about in his book The Cosmic Code:
Pagels' work in chaos theory provided the inspiration for the character of Ian Malcolm in Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park.
Pagels was a 1956 graduate of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. The school awards The Heinz R. Pagels Jr. Physics Memorial Award each year to a graduating student who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in physics.

Popular writings

Pagels had a gift for explaining complex topics in easy to understand terms, avoiding both oversimplification and needless technicalities. The cosmologist David Schramm described Pagels' first book The Cosmic Code as "a beautiful account of modern physics". In reviewing Pagels' 1985 book Perfect Symmetry, Schramm wrote: "Heinz Pagels is one of less than a handful of active scientists who can write excellent prose about the scientific frontier for a general audience."
In his book, The Cosmic Code, Pagels wrote: "Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge," "Our capacity for fulfillment can come only through faith and feelings. But our capacity for survival must come from reason and knowledge." Science, he warned, is not "as resilient as commerce, religion, or politics. It needs careful nurturing." If humankind ultimately abandons science, it would be "an error that might cost us our existence."
Regarding the change in mind-set that allowed for the development of modern science Pagels wrote:
Regarding the role complexity plays in the development of ideas, he wrote:

Books