Sidney Coleman

L-R: Sid Coleman, Dave Kyle and James White at the '87 Worldcon in Brighton. Photo by and copyright Andrew Porter.

(March 1, 1937 – November 18, 2007)

Sidney Coleman, a longtime fan, was probably best known as a highly regarded physicist at Harvard. (He was very respected and well-liked in the field and has been described as "the best physicist who never won a Nobel prize.")

Coleman was one of the founders of Advent:Publishing and an occasional reviewer for F&SF. He wrote for many fanzines, including Izzard, Lighthouse, Innuendo, and Trapdoor.

In the 1950s–60s, his most active period, he was in graduate school and then postdoccing and involved Chicago fandom and performed with CHIAC in the fannish plays they put on at Pittcon, the 1960 Worldcon.

His fanac gradually decreased as he became prominent as a theoretical physicist. Unusually, he was also a very effective teacher as well. He died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease, after a long decline. In 2023, a collection of his letters, Theoretical Physics in Your Face, including many of stfnal interest, edited by his widow Diana Coleman and two others was published by World Scientific.

• “Remembering Sidney Coleman” by Greg Benford.

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Person

1937—2007

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