[Fuusm-l] Remembrance of William A. McNeely, Jr.

[Ted Goertzel]

This was written for Bill McNeely's memorial service, but there was not
time to read it then.  Kat Hawbaker asked me to mail it out to this list.

Bill McNeely was remarkable for bridging the gap between the sciences and
the humanities in a way that enriched the lives of members of this
congregation, of our interfaith partners in the Jewish community, and of
the many of us who took his courses in the Institute for Learning in
Retirement at Marietta College. He earned his PhD in astrophysics at Cal
Tech, and published papers in refereed journals on topics such as
“Photoproduction of phi-mesons at small t-values” that only specialists can
understand. But he went beyond the technical to appreciate the broader
implications of science and learned to communicate it to the rest of us. He
preached a sermon to this congregation on the topic “Is God a
Mathematician?” His answer, I believe, was that mathematical truths are
profound and eternal, and that is one of the meanings people give to the
word God.

Bill came to Marietta late in life but he had a very youthful enthusiasm
for new challenges. He became an expert on brain science and offered two
courses on the very difficult topic of the relationship between the brain
and the mind and the implications for our lives. And he approached the
body-mind interface experientially as a regular participant in the
meditation group that meets Wednesday’s at noon in the RE building next to
our church. He taught a course on mathematics for people who hate
mathematics, and gave us a feeling for the beauty of fractal patterns and
rational numbers, for the wisdom of Pythagoras, and the discovery of the
number zero. He had no training in the humanities, but he developed a very
thoughtful analytical course on the nature of humor. And he had the courage
to go public with several gigs as a stand-up comedian at the Lafayette
Hotel.

Bill’s courage in dealing with a very difficult illness was moving. We will
miss his joy in his recent marriage, his warm friendship, his willingness
to share his insights, his eagerness to listen and learn, and his profound
quest for the meaning he believed was somehow inherent in this universe.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://fuusm.org/pipermail/fuusm-l_fuusm.org/attachments/20181107/437e3e5a/attachment.htm>