EVAN CANTWELL/GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITYBiophysicist Harold Morowitz, best known for his work on thermodynamics in biology and the origins of life, died in Falls Church, Virginia, last month (March 22). He was 88.
The Clarence Robinson professor of biology and natural philosophy at George Mason University since 1988, Morowitz engaged in a range of research topics, from the chemistry of brine shrimp eggs to a cycling theory of flow that has been nominated as a candidate for the fourth law of thermodynamics. He authored more than 15 books aimed at students and a general audience. (Read an excerpt of Cosmic Joy, Local Pain in The Scientist).
Born in 1927 in Poughkeepsie, New York, Morowitz studied physics and philosophy as an undergraduate student at Yale. Staying on at the university, he completed a master’s in physics and a doctorate in biophysics—all by the age of 23—and just four years later joined the faculty as a professor of molecular biophysics ...
