John D. McGervey

John Donald McGervey was born August 9, 1931 in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his PhD in Nuclear Physics from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1961. He then spent his entire career as a Professor of Physics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where his research focus was on positron annihilation. In addition he ran a summer program teaching physics to high school teachers. He also co-wrote, with Bill Sones, a syndicated column called "Numbers" which appeared in newspapers for several years. Hobbies included tennis and bridge. He became a life master at bridge at the age of 22.

His immensely readable 1971 textbook, Introduction to Modern Physics, appeared as a second edition in 1983. It was cited by Thornton and Rex almost 25 years later, in their 2006 textbook, Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers (p.178), as a useful source to study Fourier series and integrals, which attests to John's skills as a teacher and writer. I wish we had more like him today.