Heinz Pagels

Heinz Pagels
Heinz Rudolf Pagels (1939–1988)
Born	February 19, 1939 New York City, New York United States
Died	July 23, 1988 (1988-07-24) (aged 49) Pyramid Peak, Colorado, USA
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Physicist
Institutions	Rockefeller University New York Academy of Sciences
Alma mater	Princeton University Stanford University Woodberry Forest School
Doctoral advisor	Sidney Drell
Doctoral students	Dan Caldi Saul Stokar Seth Lloyd
Spouse	Elaine Pagels (m. 1969)

Heinz Rudolf Pagels (February 19, 1939 – July 23, 1988) was an American physicist, an adjunct professor of physics at Rockefeller University, the executive director and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, and president of the International League for Human Rights. He is best known to the general public for his popular science books The Cosmic Code (1982), Perfect Symmetry (1985), and The Dreams of Reason: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity (1988).

Pagels obtained his PhD in elementary particle physics from Stanford University under the guidance of Sidney Drell. His technical work included the Physics Reports review articles Quantum Chromodynamics (with W. Marciano) and Departures from Chiral Symmetry. A number of his published papers dealt with the source of the mass of elementary particles in quantum field theory, especially the Nambu–Goldstone realization of chiral symmetry breaking. He also published (with David Atkatz) a visionary paper entitled Origin of the Universe as a quantum tunneling event (1982) that prefigured later work done in the field. The list of his graduate students includes Dan Caldi, Saul Stokar and Seth Lloyd.

Pagels was an outspoken critic of those he believed misrepresented the discoveries and ideas of science to promote mysticism and pseudoscience. In his capacity as executive director of the New York Academy of Science in 1986, Pagels submitted an affidavit in a case involving a former member of the Transcendental Meditation movement who had sued the organization for fraud.

As president of the International League for Human Rights, Pagels worked to support freedom for researchers in other countries. He was a fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Science and Law Committee of the New York Bar Association, and a trustee of the New York Hall of Science.