David Goodstein
David Louis Goodstein was an American physicist and educator. From 1988 to 2007 he served as Vice-provost of the California Institute of Technology, where he was also a professor of physics and applied physics, as well as the Frank J. Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor.
Life and work
David Louis Goodstein was born on April 5, 1939. He was educated at Brooklyn College and at the University of Washington. He wrote several books, including States of Matter and Feynman’s Lost Lecture. In the 1980s he was the director and host of The Mechanical Universe, an educational television series on physics that was adapted for high school use and translated into many other languages. The series has been broadcast on hundreds of public broadcasting stations and has garnered more than a dozen prestigious awards, including the 1987 Japan Prize for television.In his later age, while continuing to teach and conduct research in experimental condensed matter physics, he turned his attention to issues related to science and society. In articles and speeches, he addressed conduct and misconduct in science, and issues related to fossil fuels and the climate of Planet Earth. In 2004 he published a best-selling book Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil.
In 1999, Goodstein was awarded the Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and in 2000, the John P. McGovern Medal of the Sigma Xi Society. He served on and chaired numerous scientific and academic panels, including the National Advisory Committee to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation. He was a founding member of the board of directors of the California Council on Science and Technology.
In 2015 he published Thermal Physics: Energy and Entropy. Goodstein died in Pasadena, California on April 10, 2024, five days after his 85th birthday.
Publications
Books
- 1975 States of matter. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall ].
- 1985 The mechanical universe: introduction to mechanics and heat. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- 1985 . New York: Cambridge University Press.
- 1986 The Mechanical Universe, Mechanics and Heat, Advanced Edition, textbook. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- 1996 Feynman's lost lecture: the motion of planets around the sun. New York: Norton.
- 2004 . New York: Norton.
- 2010 . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
- 2011 Adventures in Cosmology. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
- 2012 Climate Change and the Energy Problem: Physical Science and Economics Perspective. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
- 2012. Beyond the stars: our origins and the search for life in the universe. Singapore; Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific Publishing.
- 2015 . Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- 2018 . New Jersey: World Scientific Publishing.
Articles, Book chapters, Reviews
- 1989 "Richard P. Feynman, Teacher". Physics Today, 42:70–75..
- 1994 "". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 78:329,334..
- 2000. "Richard Feynman and the History of Superconductivity". Physics in Perspective, 2:30–47..
- 2011 "Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science". Reviewed by David L. Goodstein. Physics Today, 64:55..
- 2011 "How Science Works", in: Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, pp. 37–54.