R.I.P. Bohdan Paczynski: 1940-2007

I just got the news that astrophysicist Bohdan Paczynski died last Thursday after a battle with brain cancer. Bohdan was one of the most helpful and insightful scientists I ever had the opportunity to talk with. Some years ago I was writing an article about gravitational lensing (one of his specialties) for Sky & Telescope magazine and I had an extensive correspondence with Bohdan about his work. In a few well-spoken sentences he helped me understand several aspects of gravitational lensing, not an easy thing to explain on the best of days. He kept in touch with me, and as deadline time drew near for me to turn in the article, he was quite helpful in emailing me updates of the latest work being done in the field. I remember getting an email from him asking if I could give him a call. As luck would have it, I was on a cruise ship serving as an astronomy lecturer for a couple of weeks, and we had just left Montevideo, Uruguay. I wrote him back and said that I was onboard a ship and that I could do emails quickly and cheaply. And thus we finalized my article, him in his office at Princeton and me 500 miles offshore in the South Atlantic. I’ll never forget how helpful Bohdan was, and I’ll miss him greatly.

So, time passes and things change. There are a good many helpful people out there in the astronomy community who love to talk about their work. I often think about the time Gene Shoemaker escorted a group of us down into Meteor Crater in Arizona one year. I miss him, too, even though I didn’t correspond with him nearly as much as with Bohdan or others in the astronomy community. So, I salute their passing and hope that new generations of astronomers will rise up to continue the paths they started.

Speaking of things changing, Mark Petersen sent me a link to a movie that will shift your thinking a bit. Check it out!