The golden era at CCNY and its Physics Department, and a Montblanc fountain pen

Posted on October 29, 2024

Dear Friends, Please find a note of possible interest below. Thank you.

When I was an undergraduate at CCNY , I asked the brilliant, and preeminent Professor Harry Soodak a physics question in his office, Room 212 of Shepherd Hall. He took out his Montblanc fountain pen and wrote the solution on a blue piece of paper. From that moment , I always associated the Montblanc fountain pen as a classic instrument of scholarship, erudition, and inspiration. Every PhD student upon graduation and many of my research collaborators received a Montblanc pen to remember , honor and preserve the wonderful CCNY Physics intellectual environment and tradition – provided, epitomized and nurtured by CCNY in that era, ( E.g. Professors Martin Tiersten, Harry Soodak, Melvin Lax, and Daniel Greenberger in Physics, Professor Jesse Douglas ( Mathematics) , and Rose Zimbardo ( English) )and the real meaning of an academic environment and university . And the unique role that human intelligence, creativity, intuition, and insight provide to our intellectual and scientific progress and advancement. were the essence and the real meaning of an academic environment and university.

Where CCNY at that time was tuition-free, admission was solely merit based, without pedigree, without privilege, without a graduate program, without a football or basketball team, without dorms, without an endowment- and produced more Nobel Prizes in Physics ( who earned their BS in Physics at CCNY) than at any other college or university in the world.

The pen is a small and personal symbol, a recognition, remembrance, respect, and appreciation of a great tradition of scholarship - and the meaning and purpose of a university - that CCNY (and its Physics Department) was dedicated to and so many benefited from- and we will always remember and never forget.

With my deepest respect, gratitude, and appreciation,
Always,
Arthur

The Emperor’s New Mind’- Roger Penrose, and the CCNY physics department in the Golden Era and a Montblanc pen. https://books.google.com/books/about/TheEmperorsNewMind.html?id=0mVEBJ34v9EC&printsec=frontcover&source=kpreadbutton&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1

Dr. Arthur Benjamin Weglein
Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Chair in Physics
Director, Mission-Oriented Seismic Research Program
Physics Department
University of Houston
Science and Research Building Room 617
Houston, Texas, 77204-5005
E mail aweglein@central.uh.edu
http://www.mosrp.uh.edu/people/faculty/arthur-weglein