Stanley Jaki

Reverend Father Stanley L. Jaki O.S.B. in 2007.

Stanley L. Jaki, OSB (August 17, 1924, Győr, Hungary – April 7, 2009, Madrid)[1][2] was a Hungarian-born priest of the Benedictine order, and from 1975 to his death was Distinguished University Professor at Seton Hall University, New Jersey. He held doctorates in theology and in physics and was a leading contributor to the philosophy of science and the history of science, and in particular their relationship to Christianity.

Career

After completing undergraduate training in philosophy, theology and mathematics, Jaki did graduate work in theology and physics and gained doctorates in theology from the Pontifical Institute of Sant'Anselmo in Rome (1950), and in physics from Fordham University (1958), where he studied under the Nobel laureate Victor Hess, the co-discoverer of cosmic rays. He also did post-doctoral research in Philosophy of Science at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Princeton University and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Jaki authored more than two dozen books on the relation between modern science and orthodox Christianity. He was Fremantle Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford (1977), Hoyt Fellow at Yale University (1980) and Farmington Institute Lecturer at Oxford University (1988–1989). He was the Gifford Lecturer at Edinburgh University in 1974–75 and 1975–76. In 1987, he was awarded the Templeton Prize for furthering understanding of science and religion.

He was among the first to claim that Gödel's incompleteness theorem is relevant for theories of everything (TOE) in theoretical physics.[3] Gödel's theorem states that any theory that includes certain basic facts of number theory and is computably enumerable will be either incomplete or inconsistent. Since any 'theory of everything' must be consistent, it also must be incomplete.

“ It is on the ultimate success of such a quest [for a TOE] that Gödel's theorem casts the shadow of judicious doubt. It seems on the strength of Gödel's theorem that the ultimate foundations of the bold symbolic constructions of mathematical physics will remain embedded forever in that deeper level of thinking characterized both by the wisdom and by the haziness of analogies and intuitions. For the speculative physicist this implies that there are limits to the precision of certainty, that even in the pure thinking of theoretical physics there is a boundary present, as in all other fields of speculations. ”
— (1966). The Relevance of Physics. Chicago Press. p. 129.

Death

Jaki died on April 7, 2009 in Madrid (Spain) following a heart attack. He was in Spain visiting friends, on his way back to the USA after delivering lectures in Rome, for the Master in Faith and Science of the Pontificio Ateneo Regina Apostolorum.[4]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Weber, Bruce (April 12, 2009). "The Rev. Stanley L. Jaki, Physicist and Theologian, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  2. ↑ http://www.shu.edu/news/article/152011
  3. ↑ Cf. Jaki's "A Late Awakening to Gödel in Physics"
  4. ↑ Death of Rev. Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B.
  5. ↑ Flatté, Stanley M. (March 1968). "Review: Symmetries and Reflections by Eugene P. Wigner and The Relevance of Physics by Stanley Jacki". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: pp. 28–30.

External links

  • "No Other Options". Stanely L. Jaki. JASA 24 (September 1972): 127. (Response to R.H.Bube's commentary.)
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