American physicist John Wheeler died sunday morning in New Jersey. Wheeler, who coined the term blackhole, entered his personal gravitational collapse by pneumonia. Wheelr was one of last physicists that discussed quantum conundrums with Einstein, Bohr, Oppenheimer. He leaves an enormous body of work and some of the most insightful perceptions
“The black hole teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, tha 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,”
“Nothing is more important in quantum principles than this: that is destroys the world as something exterior, with the observer separated from it as if by a thick glass window. Even observing an object as tiny as an electron the glass must be shattered. I must penetrate. A measurement equipment must be installed. And then he should decide if it is going t measure position or moment. Installing the equipment to measure one excludes the other, even more the measurement changes the state of the electron. The universe will never be the same. To describe what has happened, one has to cross out the old word observer and in its place put the word participant. In a strange sense the universe is an active participant.
One must speak in terms of participation, the objet and the subject merge into the omniject.
May he rest in peace and find the vortex of light and fusion, becoming that that he dearly studied.
River on Mirror 