An American physicist who shaped much of 20th-century physics,

An American physicist who shaped much of 20th-century physics, John Archibald Wheeler was one of Albert Einstein’s last collaborators and a central figure in modern general relativity. He worked with Niels Bohr on nuclear fission, helped develop the Breit–Wheeler process, and gave the world the term “black hole.”

Wheeler introduced ideas like wormholes, quantum foam, “it from bit,” and the one-electron universe, reshaping how physicists think about spacetime and reality itself. A legendary mentor to figures such as Richard Feynman, he believed universities exist so students can teach professors.

Stephen Hawking called him “the hero of the black hole story.”

📸 Wheeler (left) and his students working at a blackboard in Princeton in 1970.