Gerald Feinberg was a Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

, futurist and populist author. He spent a year as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

, and two years at the Brookhaven Laboratories

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...

.

He coined the term tachyon

Tachyon

A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that always moves faster than light. In the language of special relativity, a tachyon would be a particle with space-like four-momentum and imaginary proper time. A tachyon would be constrained to the space-like portion of the energy-momentum graph...

 for hypothetical faster-than-light

Faster-than-light

Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....

 particles and analysed their quantum field

Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically parametrized by an infinite number of dynamical degrees of freedom, that is, fields and many-body systems. It is the natural and quantitative language of particle physics and...

 properties, predicted the existence of the muon neutrino

Muon neutrino

The muon neutrino is a subatomic lepton elementary particle which has the symbol and no net electric charge. Together with the muon it forms the second generation of leptons, hence its name muon neutrino. It was first hypothesized in the early 1940s by several people, and was discovered in 1962 by...

 and advocated cryonics

Cryonics

Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...

 as a public service. He was a member of the Foresight Institute

Foresight Institute

The Foresight Institute is a Palo Alto, California-based nonprofit organization for promoting transformative technologies. They sponsor conferences on molecular nanotechnology, publish reports, and produce a newsletter....

's advisory panel.

Books

• Cosmological Constants (with co-editor Jeremy Bernstein, 1986). ISBN 9780231063760
• Solid Clues: Quantum Physics, Molecular Biology, and the Future of Science, Simon & Schuster, 1985. ISBN 0434262005
• Life Beyond Earth: The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Extraterrestrial Life (with Robert Shapiro), Morrow, 1980. ISBN 068808642X
• What is the world made of? : Atoms, leptons, quarks, and other tantalizing particles, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977. ISBN 0385076940 & ISBN 0385076932
• Consequences of Growth: The Prospects for a Limitless Future, Seabury Press, New York, 1977. ISBN 081649326X Review
• The Prometheus Project, Mankind's Search for Long-Range Goals, Anchor Books, 1969. ISBN 0385036132

External links

• NY Times Obituary