In memoria di Wolfgang Smith

 Wolfgang Smith (1930–2024), who passed away just days ago at the age of 94, was one of the seminal thinkers of the second half of the 20th century and first two decades of the 21st. His unique gifts, which enabled his path-breaking thinking and writing, were such as to remain relatively unremarked in the mainstream until the closing decades of his life, during which he came to be regarded as a pivotal thinker through his development of what he came to call Platonic physics, a wholly new understanding of quantum mechanics in tandem with the critical concept of “vertical causality.” 

 

He graduated at the age of 18 from Cornell University with majors in philosophy, physics, and mathematics. Two years later he was awarded an M.S. in Physics from Purdue University, and some time later a PhD in Mathematics from Columbia University. He was a mathematics professor at MIT, UCLA, and Oregon State University. He worked for a time as an aerodynamicist at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, where his research was important in solving the problem of the atmosphere re-entry of space vehicles.

 

Wolfgang’s eventful life led him, at the highest level, into the domains of metaphysics (particularly Thomism), mathematics, physics, the philosophy of science, and traditionalist thought. With the growing recognition of Wolfgang’s stature, his works, along with many interviews, started to circulate widely, and an entire foundation, The Philos-Sophia Initiative (philos-sophia.org) was established to spread his thinking further.

 

On a more personal note, I had the privilege of a close collaboration with Wolfgang, beginning in the early 1990s. As I knew him, his vertiginous intellect was matched with a loving, compassionate, “pastoral” heart, and he soon became for me a valued counselor and spiritual guide. His Basque wife, who predeceased him, made good use of Wolfgang’s rich bass voice in her choir. Less known may be that he was an accomplished mountaineer. Once he held me in thrall as he described a near tragedy when an ice bridge, over which he and several other climbers were making their way during an ascent of Mt. Shasta, collapsed beneath them. Truly, Wolfgang spent a lifetime on an “ice bridge” spanning two peaks, moving ever forward as outworn or superseded conceptions continued to tumble into an abyss below him.

 

James Wetmore
Co-director
Angelico Press