This is the website archive of the Lifework of the late Albert G. Wilson, American astronomer, mathematician, physicist, innovator and general Renaissance man – a true polymath if there ever was one.
Al lived from 1918 to 2012, 94 years. His interests and products range from science to mysticism, philosophy to humanism. You will find pages on this entire range of topics in this website.
Al would say that any topic had many, many facets, like a diamond. He used the metaphor of a diamond to encourage us to turn the topic around in our minds, like we do a diamond in our hands to see its multiple flashes of light, or perspectives. This was true of him too!
Al did an incredible amount of thinking and writing. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
You will see from entering this section the many multiple aspects of his thinking, from comparing religions (or various approaches to the sacred) to philosophies to ideas. He often returned to some of his major metaphors or images of bridges between what seemed to be unscalable and ununifiable chasms. When necessary, Al just made up new words to express new ideas. He did not hesitate to frame new research areas or questions or searches to answer questions he could not answer at the time of asking.
Al did much work in the several conventional sciences, especially astronomy, cosmology, mathematics and physics. But, ever the searcher, he also pioneered a new science beyond the conventional sciences, which is still trying to be born, the systems sciences. This section includes several subsections as well as sub-sub-sections on each of these.
Awards, publications, Seminars. Especially his presentations on General Morphology, a tool and technique that he shared interest in with the legendary Dr. Fritz Zwicky at Caltech.
Al’s was not just interested in humanity and philosophy, he also delved into social issues by writing poetry, enjoying architecture, playing music, and puzzling over Future Studies as many of us agonize over.