John Archibald “Johnny” Wheeler, a leading physicist, teacher, and former member of the Manhattan Project, died Sunday, April 13. He was 96
Wheeler was born in 1911 and discovered a love of science early in life when his father, a librarian, brought him books he was considering purchasing for the library. He followed this interest to Johns Hopkins University at the age of sixteen, and at twenty-one he received his PhD. After graduating, Wheeler moved to Europe, where he worked at the University of Copenhagen with leading physicist Niels Bohr. In 1938, he joined the faculty of Princeton University and stayed there until he retired in 1976. Following his “retirement,” Wheeler served as director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Texas-Austin until 1986.