An artist of thought: In memory of Prof. David S. Eichler (1951-2021)
On behalf of the BGU physics department
David Eichler, an Emeritus professor at the Physics department in BGU, passed away on Sunday May 16, 2021 at the age of 70. He is survived by his four sons, six granddaughters, four grandsons, and two sisters.
David was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, and grew up in Monsey, New York. He got his PhD in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He moved to the University of Chicago for a postdoctoral position, and was later appointed assistant professor at the University of Maryland. In 1983 David joined BGU, to which he moved permanently in 1987. He became full professor in 1989 and served as faculty through his retirement in 2019. Throughout his career David received various honors, and he is internationally acclaimed and respected in many subfields in astrophysics. Despite battling a long illness, David remained very active and prolific to his last day. We would like to share our experience working with David, who was, to anyone who interacted with him, an original and unique mind.
David was a remarkable astrophysicist -- often referred to as one of the greatest -- driven by genuine curiosity. David has written a long list of papers, some of them revolutionized or turned into benchmarks in their respective areas, such as the 1987 review on particle acceleration he wrote together with distinguished astrophysicist Roger Blandford. Recently, David got to witness a longtime theoretical prediction of his with a few other renowned colleagues, coming true when two neutron stars merged together, sending gravitational waves through spacetime which were detected by the LIGO observatory in August 2017 more than a hundred million years after the merger. The event, which was the first detection of its kind, was accompanied by a range of electromagnetic phenomena that were received in instruments and telescopes across the globe, including in gamma-rays as was predicted by David and colleagues in 1989. The detection of gravitational waves won the 2017 Nobel prize in Physics, and David was lucky enough to see his non-trivial prediction -- the association of gamma-ray bursts with Neutron star mergers and the conjecture that most heavy elements we know (including, for example, uranium, silver, and gold) largely originate from these events -- being confirmed the same year.
But David was so fundamentally curious that he did not only concentrate on astrophysics, but also expanded his interests and research to other disciplines -- from various other fields in physics, through medicine, and even to traffic jams. His imaginative and creative mind allowed him to regard the world with a truly elegant view. His wit and unique perspective turned every conversation with him into an enjoyable mind trip, filled with humor and enlightenment. Sitting at the beach watching the sun's light rays dance on the sea ripples, he would think of cosmic-rays scattering off magnetic waves as they travel through galaxies; troubled by impact of tsunamis, David once came up with an idea for an underground barrier that would minimize their effect as they reach the shore; hearing about a new telescope being built, he would dive into the technical specifics down to the coating of the lenses and made sure he understood how things worked and pondering what could be improved; when a new type of astronomical sources -- fast radio bursts -- was established, David wondered what could be done with them and wrote about how these could be used to study the mysterious dark matter, or to measure the expansion rate of the universe; David studied experimentally the effects of diet on the development of cancer, which was triggered by his own experience; and one of his last studies concerned carbon sequestration methods to minimize CO2 levels and their impact on global warming. This short list, just from the last few years, goes on and on.
David used to say that thinking was a lost art. To some of us, David was the last great artist. His clarity of thought and reason, his constructed, first-principles logic with which he approached any problem in life as in physics, was beautiful to watch. We learned so much from working alongside him over the years.
Besides being a world-class scientist, David was a classical-music and jazz aficionado and a gifted musician, playing the piano almost every day. Despite his long illness he made sure to stay fit, and to our amazement at first, he played soccer, and regularly jogged, and even surfed (at the age of 70!). David was also profoundly social. He was always keen on meeting new people and chatting with them at length. This is perhaps why every person who hears about David's passing says things like: Such a wonderful conversation man! A unique mind! A true intellectual! A magnificent astrophysicist! David was enjoyed in so many ways.
We feel honored, and privileged, to have known and worked with David, who was, truly, one of the greatest original thinkers. Above all, David was our friend.
David, you are dearly missed.
