John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler (b. 1911) is a American theoretical physicist. One of the later collaborators of Albert Einstein, he tried to achieve Einstein's project of a unified field theory. In the 1960's, he formulated the so-called geometrodynamics, a program of physical (and ontological) reduction of every physical phenomena such as gravitation and electromagnetism to the geometrical properties of a (curved) space-time. Aiming a systematical identification of matter with space, geometrodynamics have often been said to be a systematic prolungation of the philosophy of nature as concieved by Descartes and Spinoza. Wheeler's geometrodynamics, however, failed to explain some important physical phenomena, such as the existence of fermions or that of gravitational singularities. Wheeler himself therefore abandonned this theory in the early 1970's. He continued his career as a physicist, making some very important contributions to theoretical physics.Later on, for example, he coined the term black hole and the "it from bit".
His students included Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne.
Books
Doctor John Wheeler should not be confused with John Wheeler the actor.External link