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Harry Soodak
24 December 1920 –– 30 September 2008
Through his theoretical work, in books and articles, and his practical applications,
Harry Soodak has become a leading international authority on the design of
nuclear reactors. There is hardly a handbook or treatise to which he has not
contributed or served in an editorial capacity.
Those who knew Harry at CCNY, as colleagues or as students, can testify that far
from limiting himself to reactor and nuclear physics, he possessed an unmatched
understanding of and keen insight into the entire edifice of physics – from Newton
to Einstein and from classical to quantum. Well into this decade, he published
edifying papers.
Without doubt Harry Soodak’s greatest legacy is the decisive influence he on
the hundreds of undergraduate students he taught and advised at CCNY. A physically
small “everyman” with a working class New York accent, a big cigar, and an
irreverent truthfulness, he taught physics students something entirely new. Most
students had no academic family background. Having never met a physicist, to
them physics seemed a bloodless subject of long dead historical icons. It was
Harry Soodak who turned it into a living, breathing, way of thinking about the
world.
He did something they had never seen a teacher do before: when he didn't know
the answer to a question he would take a puff, and then figure it out ––at the
blackboard, on his feet, in real time. But what impressed them even more was
what would happen when he couldn't figure it out. He'd just say, “I dunno. I gotta
think about it after class.” And he would. From Harry they began to understand
that modern physics was full of unsolved problems, and that one could actually
make a life solving them. When he was presented with an Outstanding Teacher
Award in 1987, letters of praise and admiration from former students poured in,
filled with gratitude for the great impact that Harry had had on their lives.
For many of his more than forty years on the faculty, Harry Soodak was the heart
and soul of the CCNY Physics department. As long as colleagues and students are
alive, he will be remembered and cherished.
This text has been edited from the obituary of Harry Soodak, written by Harry Lustig
& Martin S. Tiersten of CCNY and Leonard Susskind of Stanford University
click for pictures from Harry Soodak Memorial & Scholarship Ceremony
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