December 13, 1984

Dear Dr. Heinz Pagels,

You may remember me as the excited young man who wrote to you on June 6, 1982 to rave about The Cosmic Code. I'm very grateful that you answered my letter so fully and were so frank about your disdain for Ilya Prigogine. It helped me to put him in his place in my mind: I no longer worry about not living long enough to understand his books.

I hope you're working on your next book. Every time I use my home computer to connect with the on-line edition of Bowker's Books in Print I look up "Pagels" to see if it has been published yet. There are scores of references to you in the on-line magazine index I use, incidentally, mostly rave reviews of Code.

I picked up an interesting book last week that referred to you, and that gave me the idea to write. It's called Quantum Questions, and is an anthology of "Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists" edited by Ken Wilber. It's published by Shambala, the same shamans who brought The Tao of Physics down around our heads. At first I thought this would be just another looney pseudo-eastern crypto-theology exercise, but then I found that Wilber has an interesting ax to grind.

First, he starts off by stating that "modern physics offers no positive support (let alone proof) for a mystical worldview." He thinks it pathetic, if not dishonest, that people like Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav (The Dancing Wu Li Masters) have capitalized on the well-intentioned but naive desire of new-age types to believe that physics supports certain fuzzy beliefs like esp. Up to this point he sounds just like you (and I) do.

Then he goes on to anthologize various essays by famous physicists which are "metaphysical" and seem to express lack of faith in the scientific method, etc. I lose him at this point, but the original writings have a place on my shelf as historical esoterica. Anyway, on page 24 he says: "Incidentally, there is an excellent book on the new physics — Heinz Pagels's The Cosmic Code — which is the only book I can unreservedly recommend on the topic. In addition to a superb explanation and discussion of the new physics, it points out — correctly I believe — that Newtonian physics is actually much closer in many ways to Eastern mysticism than is quantum physics." I thought you should know this so it might encourage you to get going on your next book. I mean, somebody's got to stop Fred Alan Wolf (Taking the Quantum Leap, etc.). That man is single-handedly disinforming a generation of high-school students and winning awards for it. He thinks that quantum theory validates cabalistic mysticism and the laws of Moses! (Gimme a break, Wolf-man)

Oh yes, Timothy Ferris in the December 2 New York Times Book Review Section, said "For every living, breathing popular science book — I'm thinking of contemporary classics like Horace Freeland Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation, Heinz Pagels's The Cosmic Code and Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell — there are scores of others that represent science as a way of replacing the mystery and wonder of nature with a set of glib and rather unsatisfying answers."

Other trivia: I saw you introduce Abraham Pais at the annual Einstein Lecture in October 1983 at the Rockefeller Institute. I actually had the gall to ask him some questions after the lecture, but I was much to shy to say hello to you. Also: Phil Allen, who started working at the Academy of Sciences in 1983 got you to autograph my beloved copy of Code, but I don't think he told you who it was for.

I would still like to write a book on the development of atomic theory (1900-1930?) for bright high school students some day. Actually I'm about to get my first book contract with Prentice-Hall for a book on systems programming, so the possibility of eventually doing a popular science book is not so remote. Of course, I'm not a Ph.D., so I'd have to have the text validated by an introduction from a professional working scientist.

Anyway, I hope you're doing well and working hard on your new book. Let's see a few articles in the New York Times Magazine Section too, okay?

Wednesday, November 16, 1988

Dear Elaine,

You don't know me, but I was an acquaintance of your late husband. I am writing to you at this sad time to extend my sympathy for what must be a very painful loss, but also to share with you a wonderful letter I received from Heinz after his first book was published. I have no idea whether you have any interest in it, but I think it shows how generous he was with laymen such as myself who are interested in the work of scientists.

The force of his intelligence that is expressed in his three books has left a deep impression on me that will last for as long as I live.