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Volume 7, Issue 1; March 2006

Extraordinary People in Unusual Places

Lothar Schafer—Quantum Chemistry and the Search for Divine Reality

Bob Smith*

Lothar Schafer** has devoted forty years to teaching and research in physical chemistry. In the past ten-to-fifteen years, however, he has ventured far and wide—physically, intellectually and spiritually—to refine the ideas that make up his landmark book, In Search of Divine Reality (1997), which has been read all over the world in versions published in English, Russian, German, and Portuguese and soon to be published in French, and Spanish. The contents of the book represent an attempt to reconcile science and universal religious beliefs about the creation and evolution of the universe.

For Schafer, change in the universe may occur by chance—as most scientists would claim—but the emergence of complex order in the universe is not from nothing but from “virtual states” or places of potential existence. Those ideas are shaped from the field of quantum theory, which suggests, as Schafer notes, “that the basis of the material world is non-material and that, at its frontiers, physical reality does not fade into nothing but into something unobservable and metaphysical” (Schafer, 2005). Thus, theologians, scientists, and many other professionals have expressed great interest in Schafer’s work. The interest has manifested itself in invitations to speak at forums around the globe including an international colloquium organized in Rome in 2004 at the Vatican Gregorian University to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the famous French theologian and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin. Other invitations have taken Schafer to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in Paris, to CUNY (City University of New York) television in New York City and meetings in Montreal, Bonn and Prague, to name just a few.

Besides his far-flung presentations, Schaefer has, for the past ten years, offered a highly popular course on divine reality through the honors program in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and more recently—the Honors College—as well. The course attracts students with majors across the UA landscape and has been praised widely for its scope and content.

Clearly, Lothar Schafer is an extraordinary person who has found himself in “unusual places,” and it is my privilege to designate him as the first subject of this new All Things Academic feature—so dubbed.

One final note: Recently, Schafer, along with such notable scientists as Freeman Dyson (Princeton Advanced Studies Institute), Bernard d’ Espagnat (Physicist and Member, French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences), Mario Molina (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), and Charles Townes (Nobel Laureate in Physics), among others, collaborated on the crafting and publication of the manifesto, Towards an Open-Minded Science (published by the French daily Le Monde and available in English translation from Professor Schafer), which offers a rationale for their discussions while distancing their efforts from creationists and proponents of intelligent design. Such efforts have placed Schafer in extraordinary company and, in general, he believes that his scholarly outreach efforts have helped forge a new consciousness and “reality” among global citizens who might not have been aware or indeed appreciated our university and fair state. As he noted recently: “I am actually quite proud that I have been able to be a good-will ambassador for the State which, during the last forty years, has become my home.” How delightful!

Bibliography

Schafer, Lothar. In Search of Divine Reality—Science as a Source of Inspiration. Fayetteville, AR: The University of Arkansas Press, 1997.

Schafer, Lothar. Personal communication, 2005.

*Bob Smith serves as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at The University of Arkansas

**Lothar Schafer is the Edgar Wertheim Professor of Physical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences