I had imagined what it would be like if he threw another rock into the modern publishing fray by writing an updated version of it, but now that won't happen, at least by him.
Martin Gardner, who introduced millions (including myself) to the idea that math and logic can and should be fun, has died at age 95.
Apparently, the warden was right all along...
Oh God, he died? Geez. Well, I knew he was old, but it's still that little bit of shock when it happens. I have his book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. I tried reading it, because I was made to understand that it was the forerunner to modern such books about pseudoscience and problems in thinking and understanding like Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things and Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, but it was seriously dated.
I had imagined what it would be like if he threw another rock into the modern publishing fray by writing an updated version of it, but now that won't happen, at least by him.
Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of both Unix and the C programming language, has died at age 70, following a long illness.
John McCarthy, creator of the LISP language, and considered by many to be the "Father of AI" has died at the age of 84.
RIP Sally Ride, first American woman in space, at 61, from pancreatic cancer.
RIP Doug Englebart.
All of you reading this owe Doug a huge debt. He invented the Mouse, Hyperlinks, WSYIWYG Editing, Video Conferencing, windowed user interfaces, and much much more.
Doug, you will be missed.
Since you can only post one link per comment...
Here is a video of the "Mother of all Demos" wherein Englebart demonstrates all those technologies...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY
Marvin Minsky, AI pioneer and co-founder of MIT's AI Lab has died at age 88.
RIP John Glenn, age 95.
Godspeed.
RIP Vera Rubin, age 88. Dr. Rubin was one of the greatest female scientists of the 1900s. She was the researcher who found the anomalies in galactic rotation that led to the dark matter hypothesis.
Gene Cernan, the last man on the moon, has died at age 82.
RIP Bruce McCandless II.
McCandless is the astronaut in the iconic photo of the untethered astronaut flying the MMU.
RIP to John Young, age 87
Pilot, Gemini 3
Command Pilot,Gemini 10
Command Module Pilot, Apollo 10
Commander, Apollo 16
Commander STS-1
Commander, STS-9
Stephen Hawking has died from ALS at age 76.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43396008?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central
That is sad. Humanity has lost one of its brightest beacons.
RIP Alan Bean. Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 12, he was the fourth man to walk on the moon. He also became "famous" for knowing where the SCE switch was after the spacecraft was struck by lightning upon liftoff.
In addition, he commanded the Skylab 3 mission (the second crew to Skylab), setting a new record for time spent in space.
After retiring from NASA in 1975, Bean devoted his life to painting.
He also retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain.
Godspeed, Alan Bean. May you and your friends Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon have many adventures together in the hereafter.
RIP Chris Kraft, age 95.
Kraft was one of the original engineers at NASA, having come over from NACA. He invented (for lack of a better word) the job of Flight Director, and was in charge of all six manned Mercury missions. He rose through the administrative ranks and later became director of the MSC (Manned Space Center) in Houston.
Godspeed, Dr. Kraft.
RIP to Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space. Leonov also commanded the Soyuz portion of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. Leonov passed at age 85 after a long illness.
Legendary mathematician Katherine Johnson, one of the "Hidden Figures", died on 2/24 at age 101.
Mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson has died at age 96.
If his 1960's Project Orion had panned out, we'd have manned outposts over the entire solar system right now.
Charles "Chuck" Berry, who was the flight surgeon for NASA from Mercury through Apollo, has died at age 96.
RIP to Col. Al Worden, at age 88.
Al Worden was the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 15. He was involved in educating young people about space and science. In 1974, he wrote a children's book titled I Want to Know More About a Flight to the Moon, and he also appeared on Mr. Rogers.
Godspeed, Col. Worden.
Col. Worden was also the first of only three people to perform a deep space EVA. On the return trip from the moon, he performed a space walk at about 200,000 miles from the Earth.
Major General Michael Collins has died at age 90 from cancer.
Collins was, of course, the command module pilot on Apollo 11. However, he was also the pilot on Gemini 10. Post-NASA, he served in the State Department, and then as the director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
He will be sorely missed.
Now only Buzz Aldrin is left of that crew.
The only intact crews from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo:
* Gemini 7: Borman and Lovell
* Gemini 12: Lovell and Aldrin
* Apollo 8: Borman, Lovell, and Anders
* Apollo 9: McDivitt, Scott, and Schweikart
RIP to Walter Cunningham, age 90, after complications from a fall.
Col. Cunningham was part of NASA's third astronaut group, "The Fourteen". He flew on Apollo 7 in the Lunar Module Pilot seat (even though there was no LM on this mission). He was the "Walt" in "Wally, Walt, and What's-His-Name".
RIP and Fly High, Walt.
Within ten years there won't be anyone left who walked on the Moon.
That is unless they launch a new mission there. If they could do it in 1969, they could do it now.
RIP to Gordon Moore, aged 94.
Moore co-founded Intel with Robert Noyce, but it probably most famous for his prediction that transistor counts (and therefore computing power) would double at regular intervals. This prediction, known as Moore's Law, held for nearly 50 years.
RIP to Col. Frank Borman, age 95.
Borman was one of the "New Nine", the second group of NASA astronauts, selected in 1962. He commanded Gemini 7, setting a record for time spent in space. He later commanded Apollo 8, the first manned flight to the moon.
He also served as the astronaut representative on the Apollo 1 investigation board, and helped convince Congress that Apollo would be safe to fly again.
Farewell, Col. Borman, you will be missed. Fly high forever.
And I missed posting this earlier.
RIP T.K. "Ken" Mattingly, who passed on Oct 31, 2023. Mattingly was the original command module pilot for Apollo 13 (played by Gary Sinise in the film), who was exposed to German Measles, and scrubbed from the mission. His role in helping the crew with power conservation (again, as shown in the film) was invaluable in the mission's safe return.
Mattingly later was the CMP for Apollo 16, and performed a deep-space EVA during the return trip from the Moon. He also flew STS-4, the final test flight of the Space Shuttle, as well as STS-51C, the first DoD shuttle mission.
He retired from the Navy in 1986 with the rank of Rear Admiral (upper half).
Godspeed, Admiral Mattingly.
Another one gone.
Correction to my 2:12. Mattingly *COMMANDED* both STS-4 and STS-51C.
On March 18, Lt. General Tom Stafford passed away.
Stafford was one of the “New Nine” astronaut class, chosen in 1962. He flew with Wally Schirra on Gemini 6A, the first rendezvous in space. He later commanded Gemini 9, as well as Apollo 10, the “dress rehearsal” for the first moon landing.
In 1975, he commanded the final Apollo mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP).
For ASTP, the American astronauts had to learn Russian, and Stafford spoke it with such a pronounced Oklahoma accent that it was said he was speaking “Oklahomski”.
He remained friends with Alexei Leonov, his Russian counterpart on ASTP, for the remainder of their lives.
Godspeed and Farewell, General Stafford. You will be missed.
Wonder if anyone born after 1980 even knows who he was.
RIP to Peter Higgs, age 94.
Higgs proposed the mechanism for the existence of mass, the Higgs Boson, sometimes called the "God Particle", discovered in 2012.
Higgs died at home. No cause of death was mentioned in the article.
Given how old he was, I'd say the cause was old age.
Keep an eye out for a thin man in a black robe wielding a scythe and carrying a portable chess game.
;-)
At least it's not a Battleship set.