Eugene Hecht (born 2 December 1938 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and author of a standard textbook in

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

. Hecht studied at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(B.S. in E.P. 1960),

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

(M. Sc. 1963),

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York, United States. Adelphi also has centers in Downtown Brooklyn, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County in addition to a virtual, online campus for remote students. As of 2019, it had ...

(Ph.D. 1967). During his graduate study he worked at

Radio Corporation of America RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

. His pedagogical work began in 1970 with a publication on a mathematical description of

polarization Polarization or polarisation may refer to: Mathematics *Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds *Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...

hired Hecht to teach and he became

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

in 1978, from where he retired in 2021. Hecht challenged the notion of

potential energy In physics, potential energy is the energy of an object or system due to the body's position relative to other objects, or the configuration of its particles. The energy is equal to the work done against any restoring forces, such as gravity ...

in 2003. The elusive nature of a universal definition of

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

was argued by Hecht in a letter to the editor of ''

The Physics Teacher ''The Physics Teacher'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by AIP Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Physics Teachers covering the history and philosophy of physics, applied physics, physics education (curriculum dev ...

'' in 2004. In 2006 he wrote "there is no really good definition of mass." He has continued writing on the topic, with publications in 2011 and 2016. Eugene Hecht has also written on American ceramic artist George E. Ohr and is a founding member of the American Ceramic Arts Society.

Books

His first textbook ''Optics'' was authored in 1974 alongside Alfred Zajac, a colleague at Adelphi. In 1975, Hecht wrote ''Theory and Problems of Optics'' for

Schaum's Outlines Schaum's Outlines () is a series of supplementary texts for American high school, AP, and college-level courses, currently published by McGraw-Hill Education Professional, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill Education. The outlines cover a wide variety of ...

. Hecht is the sole author of his 1998 third edition of ''Optics''. Other works include: *Hecht, Eugene (1980). ''Physics in perspective''. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. *Hecht, Eugene (1998). ''Physics: algebra/trig'' (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, Calif: Brooks/Cole. *Hecht, Eugene (2000). ''Physics: calculus'' (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. *

Brooks/Cole Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for higher education, K–12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(June 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders 20 ...

published a review of ''Physics: calculus'' in 1996, in which reviewers "found something intriguing on every page." Hecht contributed to a celebration of potter George Ohr after his workshop was consumed in fire.

References

Eugene Hecht
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hecht, Eugene 1938 births Adelphi University faculty American optical physicists Living people New York University alumni Rutgers University alumni