Caltech Remembers David Goodstein

David Goodstein, the Frank J. Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor, Emeritus, and professor of physics and applied physics, emeritus, passed away on April 10. He served as a professor at Caltech for more than four decades, and as the Institute’s vice provost from 1987 to 2007. His research focused on condensed matter physics, in particular on phases and phase transitions in two- and three-dimensional matter, and superfluidity.

In the 1980s, Goodstein 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 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.

He also authored several books, including States of Matter; Feynman’s Lost Lecture, written with his wife, Judith Goodstein; Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil; On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science; and Climate Change and the Energy Problem.

In more recent times, Goodstein turned his attention to issues related to science and society. In articles, speeches, and colloquia, he addressed conduct and misconduct in science, the end of exponential growth of the scientific enterprise, and issues related to fossil fuels and Earth’s climate.

Goodstein received his bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College in 1960 and his PhD from the University of Washington in 1965. 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 several scientific and academic panels, including the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the California Council on Science and Technology.

A full obituary will be posted at a later date.