Pesic, Peter (Dragan) 1948-

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PESIC, Peter (Dragan) 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born May 11, 1948, in San Francisco, CA; son of Paul Sviatoslavonic and Milena Ljubomirovna (Boyonic) Pesic; married Ssu Isabel Weng, June 2, 1984; children: Andrei Petrovic, Alexie Petrovic. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1969; Stanford University, M.S., 1970, Ph.D. (physics), 1985. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Russian Orthodox.

ADDRESSES:

Office—St. John's College, 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, writer, musician, and editor. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, CA, research assistant and associate, 1976-80; St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM, tutor, 1980—, musician-in-residence, beginning 1984. Concert pianist, performing throughout the United States. Presenter of papers.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Danforth Foundation graduate fellow, 1969-75; Choice Outstanding Academic Book designation, 2003, for Seeing Double.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction and notes) Max Planck, Lectures in Theoretical Physics, Dover (Mineola, NY), 1998.

Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

(Editor and author of introduction and notes) James Clerk Maxwell, Theory of Heat (revision of ninth edition, published in 1888), Dover Publications (Mineola, NY), 2001.

Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Abel's Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Journal of Physics, Crpyographia, Daedalus, European Journal of Physics, Historia Mathematica, Isis, Literature and Theology, Mathematical Intelligencer, Nineteenth-Century Music, Physical Review, and Studies in Philology.

Pesic's works have been translated into Japanese and German.

SIDELIGHTS:

In addition to being an educator and a concert pianist, Peter Pesic has written widely on the interplay among science, philosophy, and the arts in modern society. His books include Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature, Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science, and Abel's Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability, the last the story of nineteenth-century Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, whose proof involving an abstract algebraic equation advanced human intellectual thought.

In Labyrinth Pesic follows the scientific quest to unlock the "secrets" of nature, and its effect upon both individual men and the development of mathematics as a symbolic language. Basing his study on the life and innovations of early seventeenth-century scientist William Gilbert, mathematician François Viète, and Francis Bacon, he takes what a Kirkus Reviews contributor described as a "romantic" perspective. In his timeless view, according to the critic, three factors are at play in the advancement of science, each represented in turn by Gilbert, Bacon, and Viète: "First is the scientist's labyrinthine struggle to understand nature; second is the ardent desire … that inspires the scientist's pursuit; and third is the role that symbolic mathematics plays in facilitating the pursuit." The Kirkus Reviews contributor went on to call Labyrinth a "distinct contribution" to science writing, while in American Scientist S. S. Schweber commented that the author "brilliantly conveys the meaning and motivation for the attempts of Gilbert, Kepler, Newton, and the other [scientific] virtuosi to read the Book of Nature and to decipher her secrets." Although maintaining that Pesic's focus is slightly different from what his book's subtitle might suggest—Labyrinth "really discusses the meaning of the hidden in science, not the hidden meaning of science"—Eighteenth-Century Studies reviewer Helmut Müller-Sievers praised the work as "elegantly written and … quite well documented."

Pesic makes the argument that quantum theory, which holds that basic particles are not unique, creates the need to re-define what is meant by individuality in his 2003 book Seeing Double. In literature ranging from Homer to Kafka, and philosophers ranging from Leibniz to Kant, he ponders the significance of what he calls "indenticality" as well as what is really meant by "identity": being an exact duplicate of something else or being different from it? Reviewing Pesic's deeply researched work, Ray Olson noted in Booklist that the writer "suavely creates a masterpiece by saying much in little space." Although a Publishers Weekly reviewer found the book to be "suggestive but almost terse" in its study of the concept of individuality in light of modern science, Isis contributor Jonathan Bain called Seeing Double an "entertaining" work that "seamlessly combines an accurate and well-referenced history of atomic theories of matter with literary and philosophical accounts of identity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, November, 2000, S. S. Schweber, review of Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science, p. 553.

Booklist, March 1, 2002, Ray Olson, review of Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature, p. 1067; January 1, 2003, review of Seeing Double, p. 791.

Choice, October, 2000, F. Potter, review of Labyrinth, p. 352; October, 2002, J. P. McKinney, review of Seeing Double, p. 361.

Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2000, p. 22.

Eighteenth-Century Studies, spring, 2001, Helmut Müller-Sievers, review of Labyrinth, pp. 478-481.

English Historical Review, February, 2001, R. G. A. Dolby, review of Labyrinth, p. 207.

Isis, December, 2002, Jonathan Bain, review of Seeing Double, p. 670.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2000, review of Labyrinth, p. 702.

Publishers Weekly, January 21, 2002, review of Seeing Double, p. 75.

Renaissance Quarterly, winter, 2002, Pamela O. Long, review of Labyrinth, p. 1323.