John Archibald Wheeler

American physicist (1911-2008)

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About

John Archibald Wheeler, an American physicist, left a lasting mark on 20th-century physics through his contributions to nuclear fission, general relativity, and quantum gravity. He coined the term 'black hole' and developed the concept of wormholes. A professor at Princeton, he mentored distinguished students such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne. His work on the Manhattan Project and his involvement in the hydrogen bomb were pivotal. He also proposed the participatory anthropic principle and the notion 'It from Bit'.

* 1911-07-09 — † 2008-04-13

Major works

Gravitation (1973)scientific textbook
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics (1998)autobiography

Key milestones

1939Co-authored with Niels Bohr a paper on the mechanism of nuclear fission, identifying uranium-235 as the key isotope.
1967Coined the term 'black hole' during a conference.
1971Received the National Medal of Science.

Themes

black holesquantum gravitynuclear fissioncosmologyinformation

Sources: phy.princeton.edu · nasonline.org · britannica.com

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

— John Archibald WheelerTheme · Science

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“It from bit. Otherwise put, every it—every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely from the binary digits, the bits, that give a yes-or-no answer to binary questions.”

— John Archibald WheelerTheme · Science

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“Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening at once.”

— John Archibald WheelerTheme · Science

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