Michał Heller

Michał Kazimierz Heller (born 12 March 1936 in Tarnów) is a Polish professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, Poland, and an adjunct member of the Vatican Observatory staff. He also serves as a lecturer in the philosophy of science and logic at the Theological Institute in Tarnów. A Roman Catholic priest belonging to the diocese of Tarnów, Heller was ordained in 1959. In 2008 he received the Templeton Prize for his works in the field of philosophy.

For those of a similar name, see Michael Heller (disambiguation).
The Reverend

Michał Heller
Heller in 2013
Born (1936-03-12) 12 March 1936
Tarnów
OccupationPhilosopher, theoretical physicist
NationalityPolish
Alma materCatholic University of Lublin
Notable awardsTempleton Prize (2008)
Order of Polonia Restituta (2009)
Order of the White Eagle (2014)

Career

Michał Heller attended high school in Mościce, graduated from the Catholic University of Lublin, where he earned a master's degree in philosophy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in cosmology in 1966.

After beginning his teaching career at Tarnów, he joined the faculty of the Pontifical Academy of Theology in 1972 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1985. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and a visiting scientist at Belgium's University of Liège, the University of Oxford, the University of Leicester, Ruhr University in Germany, The Catholic University of America, and the University of Arizona among others.

His current research is concerned with the singularity problem in general relativity and the use of noncommutative geometry in seeking the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics into quantum gravity. His model gives new perspectives on quantum entanglement and the EPR paradox.[1]

Awards

Templeton Prize

In March 2008, Heller was awarded the $1.6 million (£820,000) Templeton Prize for his extensive philosophical and scientific probing of "big questions". His works have sought to reconcile the "known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God."[2] On receiving the Templeton Prize, Heller said:

If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God's thinking about the universe; the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing?

When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes.

Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made.[3]

Heller used the prize money to establish the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies – an institute named after Nicholas Copernicus aimed at research and popularisation of science and philosophy. Heller himself is the director of the Center, as well as the program director of Copernicus Festival.

Other distinctions

Honorary degrees from:

Other distinctions:

Memberships

Further reading

Michael Heller has published nearly 200 scientific papers, not only in general relativity and relativistic cosmology, but also in philosophy, history of science and theology. He authored more than 50 books. In his volume, Is Physics an Art? (Biblos, 1998), he writes about mathematics as the language of science and also explores such humanistic issues as beauty as a criterion of truth, creativity, and transcendence.

Books – Physics and Cosmology
  • The Science of Space-Time, with Derek Jeffrey Raine, Pachart Publishing House, Tucson 1981, ISBN 09-1291-812-8
  • Encountering the Universe, Pachart Publishing House, Tucson 1982, ISBN 09-1291-807-1
  • Questions to the Universe – Ten Lectures on the Foundations of Physics and Cosmology, Pachart Publishing House, Tucson 1986, ISBN 08-8126-008-8
  • Theoretical Foundations of Cosmology – Introduction to the Global Structure of Space-Time, World Scientific, Singapore–London 1992, ISBN 978-98-1020-756-4
  • Lemaître, Big Bang and the Quantum Universe, Pachart, Tucson 1996, ISBN 978-08-8126-285-8
  • Some Mathematical Physics for Philosophers, Pontifical Council for Culture, Pontifical Gregorian University, Vatican City–Rome 2005, ISBN 978-88-2097-724-5
  • Ultimate explanations of the universe, transl. by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Springer, 2009, ISBN 978-36-4202-102-2

Books – Philosophy and Theology
  • The World and the Word – Between Science and Religion, Pachart Publishing House, Tucson 1986, ISBN 978-08-8126-724-2
  • The New Physics and a New Theology, transl. by G. V. Coyne, T.M. Sierotowicz, Vatican Observatory Publications 1996, ISBN 02-6801-479-5
  • Creative Tension. Essays on Science & Religion, Templeton Foundation Press, Philadelphia–London 2003, ISBN 19-3203-134-0
  • A Comprehensible Universe. The Interplay of Science and Theology, with George Coyne, Springer, New York 2008, ISBN 978-35-4077-624-6, ISBN 978-36-4209-637-2
  • The Sense of Life and the Sense of the Universe, Copernicus Center Press, Cracow 2010, ISBN 978-83-6225-902-1
  • Philosophy in Science: An Historical Introduction, Springer, 2011, ISBN 978-36-4217-704-0
  • Philosophy of Chance. A cosmic fugue with a prelude and a coda, Copernicus Center Press, Cracow 2012, ISBN 978-83-7886-000-6

Articles
  • The Origins of Time, in: The Study of Time IV, ed. by J.T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, D. Park, Springer Verlag, New York–Heidelberg–Berlin 1981, pp. 90–93, ISBN 03-8790-594-4
  • Algebraic Self-Duality as the "Ultimate Explanation", Foundations of Science, 9, 2004, pp. 369–385

See also

References
  1. Abner Shimony, “Bell's theorem”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. Million-Dollar Prize Given to Cosmologist Priest
  3. Professor wins prize for maths link to God
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