Joel Primack, Physicist Who Helped Explain the Cosmos, Dies at 80
The New York Times • • science
Key Points:
- Joel R. Primack, a physicist who contributed significantly to understanding how quantum fluctuations after the Big Bang led to galaxy formation, died at age 80 from pancreatic cancer.
- As a professor at UC Santa Cruz, Primack co-authored a landmark 1984 Nature paper explaining the role of dark matter in shaping the universe's structure.
- His work, alongside colleagues George Blumenthal, Sandra Faber, and Martin Rees, helped identify key properties of dark matter essential for explaining galactic behavior.
- Primack's research provided a foundational framework still used by astrophysicists today to study the cosmos and the mysterious nature of dark matter.
