Patrick J Fleming
Patrick J. Fleming | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | January 1, 1938 |
| Died | July 4, 1998 (aged 60) |
| Residence | Dublin, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Known for | Cosmology, Universe Origins, Origin of Elements, Life, Quantum Theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mechanical Engineer |
Patrick J. Fleming (January 1938 – 4 July 1998), known as Pat Fleming, was an Irish mechanical engineer and independent researcher based in Dublin. Alongside a career in engineering and industrial standards, he pursued interests in cosmology, the origin of the chemical elements, the origin of galaxies and the Earth, the origin of life, and the emergence of Homo sapiens. He is remembered for essays applying the quantum theory to the evolution of the universe and for advocating the de Broglie–Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Biography
Fleming was a native Dubliner, born in January 1938 and raised in the North Circular Road area of the city. He received his Leaving Certificate from O'Connell's C.B.S. in 1956 and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from University College Dublin in 1961. A graduate apprenticeship at Parsons–Reyrolle in Durham, England, qualified him for chartered membership of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
He returned to Ireland in 1964 to work with the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), where he was responsible for the operation of power stations, including peat-fired stations in the midlands. Over the following years he earned a number of additional engineering degrees and credentials as he moved from the ESB to the Small Industries Division of the Industrial Development Authority, then to the Northern Ireland Polytechnic at Jordanstown, and on to the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards (IIRS).
Following bypass surgery in 1979, Fleming joined the Standards division of the IIRS (now the National Standards Authority of Ireland), working particularly on standards for the gas industry and European standards for liquefied petroleum gas appliances.
In addition to his engineering and standards expertise, Fleming maintained cultural and scientific interests, principally in the origins of humankind and ancient civilisation and in theoretical and experimental physics. He was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, of Astronomy Ireland, and, more recently, an associate member of the American Astronomical Society. Outside his professional work he enjoyed hill walking, making amateur videos, and practising spoken German.
Fleming died on 4 July 1998 and was survived by his sister Lily and an extended family, into whose custody his scientific papers passed.
Scientific contributions
Fleming's papers, articles, comments and book reviews were conceived as elements of a single projected history of events from the beginning of space-time (the so-called "Big Bang") to the emergence of Homo sapiens. He postulated a single interconnecting mechanism to account for all phases of the material development of the universe, while suggesting that non-material development might not be amenable to explanation from physics. His inquiries ranged over the proliferation and extinction of life and the emergence of human culture — language, cognition, consciousness and religion — around 180,000 years before present, with a particular concern for the position of the Neanderthals.
In interpreting quantum mechanics, Fleming favoured the approach developed by Louis de Broglie and David Bohm, which was highly regarded by the Irish physicist John Bell. He was especially concerned with the Irish connections of scientific theories, and wrote on Erwin Schrödinger's residence in Dublin between 1939 and 1956. In a June 1998 paper in the Engineers Journal he concluded that photon behaviour could best be explained by a non-zero rest mass for the photon. His last presentation on the origin of humankind was a paper delivered at the "Towards a Science of Consciousness" conference in Tucson.
Abstracts
External links
- Obituary by I. J. Cowan (National Standards Authority of Ireland), Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 1999, 31, 1599. DOI: 10.3847/BAASOBIT1999006
- This BAAS obituary in the ADS: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999BAAS...31.1599C PDF