Arnold B. Arons (1916–2001)

Arnold B. Arons died of a heart attack at his home in Seattle on February 28, 2001, aged 84. He was a long‐time member of the American Geophysical Union (1950; Ocean Sciences) and of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), of which he was president in 1961. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Arnold Arons was a teacher of physics. He taught it to the freshmen at Amherst College from 1952 to 1968, and then, at the University of Washington, he taught prospective teachers of physics how to teach it. He stressed meaning in physical concepts: how it is derived from shared experience, is founded on operational definitions, and is deepened and broadened with growing sophistication, individual and historical. He derided glib chatter about complex ideas (“Gibberish!”), or mere manipulation of symbols and formulas, and insisted—fiercely—that students know what they were talking about. His presence in the lecture hall at Amherst was sometimes terrifying; that technique might not be readily accepted in present, more tender times, but it was effective in shaking high school hotshots loose from some of their delusions. Despite perceived indignities, they usually gave him a standing ovation at the end of the spring semester.