Paul Horowitz (born 1942) is a U.S. physicist and electrical engineer, known primarily for this work in electronics design, as well as for his role in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (see SETI).
At age 8, Horowitz achieved distinction as the world's youngest ham radio operator. He went on to study physics at Harvard University (B.A., 1965; M.A., 1967; Ph.D., 1970), where he has also spent all of his subsequent career. His early work was on scanning microscopy (using both protons and X-rays). Horowitz has also conducted astrophysical research on pulsars and investigations in biophysics. His interest in practical electronics has led to various inventions, including an automated voting machine and an acoustic mechanism for landmine detection. Since 1974 he has taught a practical course in electronics whose lecture notes became one of the best known textbooks in the field: Art of Electronics (coauthored with Winfield Hill).
Horowitz was one of the pioneers of the search of intelligent life beyond the Earth, and one of the leaders behind SETI. This work has attracted both admiration and ridicule. Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr has sharply criticized him for wasting the resources of the university and the efforts of graduate students on such an endeavour. Carl Sagan, on the other hand, is believed to have based the main character in his novel Contact partly on Horowitz.
Horowitz holds professorial appointments at Harvard in both physics and electrical engineering.
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Last updated: 08-19-2005 08:01:29
