George Benedek (1928–2026)

Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology, by Benedek and Villars.

George Benedek passed away on July 5 at the age of 97. Benedek and his coauthor Felix Villars (1921–2002) wrote the three-volume text Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology, which is often cited in Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. Benedek was a Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 50 years, where he held an endowed chair: The Alfred H. Caspary Professor of Physics and Biological Physics.

Russ Hobbie wrote a review of a revised edition of Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology for the magazine Physics Today (July, 2001). Here are some excerpts.

The Physics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began about 30 years ago to offer a special calculus-based introductory course for freshmen and sophomores interested in biology. This led to the first edition of George B. Benedek and Felix M. H. Villars’s Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology. The book was issued by Addison-Wesley in 1979 as three paperback typescript volumes. The book fascinated many physicists with the applications of physics in biochemistry and physiology, but they have been out of print since 1990. Now that the AIP Press and Springer-Verlag have issued a second edition, as printed volumes, a new generation of physicists can learn from them…

These are classic books, and anyone planning to include biophysical examples in a calculus-level course should study them carefully. The authors are to be congratulated for their work, and I commend AIP Press and Springer-Verlag for making the books available again.

In his review, Russ lists the book as published in 1979, but I think there must have been earlier editions, because the first edition of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, published in 1978, cites Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology several times, and lists the publication date as 1973 (Volume 1) and 1974 (Volume 2). Clearly Benedek and Villars influenced the first edition of IPMB and all subsequent editions. You can learn more about Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology here, here, and here.

Benedek wasn’t just a textbook author. He invented quasi-elastic light scattering spectroscopy and became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1962. He received the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology’s Proctor Medal in 1997 for “outstanding research in basic or clinical sciences as applied to ophthalmology.” He was a true biological physicist. He’ll be missed.