Jorge Wagensberg Lubinski (2 December 1948 – 3 March 2018),
was a Spanish professor, researcher and writer. Graduate (1971) and PhD (1976) in Physics with extraordinary prize from the University of Barcelona, where he was Professor of Theory of Irreversible Processes and

Statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. It does not assume or postulate any natural laws, but explains the macroscopic be ...

in the Faculty of Physics from 1981 to 2016. He was also a visiting professor at Danube University Krems ( Austria). Wagensberg was one of the most outstanding scientific disseminators in Spain as an editor, lecturer, writer and museologist. He created and directed between 1991 and 2005 the Science Museum of the "la Caixa" Foundation in Barcelona, also leading the renewal of the same that culminated in 2004 in what is now called CosmoCaixa, with headquarters in Barcelona and Madrid. In 2005, the Generalitat de Catalunya awarded him the National Prize for Scientific Thought and Culture for his work imagining and creating the new Cosmocaixa. He remained the scientific director of the la Caixa Foundation until 2014. As a scientist, Wagensberg made contributions to the production of scientific thought, in different fields, such as: thermodynamics of non-equilibrium, thermodynamics of microbiological crops, Monte Carlo method, theoretical biology,

entomology Entomology () is the science, scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such ...

, taphonomy, philosophy of science and scientific museology in specialized journals such as Journal of Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics, Physics A, American Journal of Physics, The Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), Scandinavian Entomology, Beiträge zur Entomologie, Biology and Philosophy, Biological Theory, Computer Applications in Biosciences (CABIOS), Museum Practice or ECSITE News Letters. He was president of the European Collaborative for Science & Technology (ECSITE) between 1993 and 1995 and, in 2010, he was a founding member of the European Museum Academy (EMA). He collaborated regularly in the magazine Mètode and in the newspapers ''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

'' and '' El Periódico''.Jorge Wagensberg dirigirá el proyecto museográfico del Hermitage
He was the author of journalistic essays, a score of books and a hundred research papers on thermodynamics,

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, biophysics,

microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...

, paleontology,

, scientific museology and philosophy of science. In April 2014 he published a work in the journal on

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and evolution ''Biological Theory'', of the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Austria, on the essence of the scientific method: "On the Existence and Uniqueness of the Scientific Method" (2014), vol.9 ( 3), pp 331–346. In 1983 he founded the book collection "Metatemas", of which he was editor since then. The collection, dedicated to scientific thought, has published more than a hundred titles by authors such as: Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Konrad Lorenz, Richard Feynman,

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

, Jacques Monod, François Jacob,

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...

, Murray Gell-Mann, Martin Gardner, Martin Rees,

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

, Benoît Mandelbrot, Lynn Margulis,

Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, an ...

, Sheldon Glashow,

René Thom René Frédéric Thom (; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became w ...

and Wagensberg himself, among others. On its 30th anniversary the collection exceeds the 130 titles published. He was the author of numerous

aphorisms An aphorism (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often hand ...

, published in newspapers (especially in ''

'') and in compilation books, such as ''Más árboles que ramas'' (Tusquets, 2012).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagensberg Lubinski, Jorge 1948 births 2018 deaths Scientists from Catalonia Physicists from Catalonia Spanish physicists University of Barcelona alumni Academic staff of the University of Barcelona Aphorists