A lovable spirit passed on yesterday. John Archibald Wheeler was a theoretical physicist who walked among the pipe-smoking titans of yore. He was a colleague of Einstein and a student of Bohr, worked on the Manhattan Project and coined various terms like “wormhole” and “quantum foam.” Ever heard the theory that every decision creates a separate universe for each choice? John Wheeler sponsored that one.

He’s also a big reason I moved to Austin. In my halcyon youth I dreamt of becoming a theoretical physicist and the University of Texas was my first choice among affordable schools, with Wheeler and Steven Weinberg as the rock star names atop the bill. In 1986 I signed up for one of his courses. (It was for non-physics majors, but hey - this was John Wheeler.) It’s one of the few college classes I can confidently state will always influence me. Wheeler remains the most amazing example I’ve seen of someone geniunely in love with his work. He seemed to live in his own magical universe of graphs and equations we mortals could only strive to understand. His biggest joy was describing that universe to us. He’d give us photocopied notes with cute drawings and handwritten poems about light and time and quantum phenomena. He was a gleefully childlike old genius.

And old he was. He was in his 70’s at the time. He moved gingerly and looked like a spring wind might blow him away. He left in the middle of the semester to have heart surgery; but a day after he was released from the hospital he tottered into the classroom to say hello, excitement written across his pale face. He probably would have taken over from the guest lecturer if he’d had the strength.

Periodically since then I’ve assumed he’d died, only to learn he was still ticking away like an antique watch. I guess the spring finally unwound for the last time. But I have no doubt he’s soaring through that magical universe of high wonder and higher math.

Here’s to you, old boy! We’ll have to train up a hundred mad geniuses to replace you.