Fritjof Capra Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Fritjof Capra
Capra in 2010
Born	(1939-02-01) February 1, 1939 (age 85) Vienna, Austria
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Known for	Ecoliteracy Popularizing systems theory
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, systems theory
Institutions	U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Berkeley, San Francisco State University

Writing career
Notable works	The Tao of Physics The Turning Point

Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American author, physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher College.

Capra is the author of several books, including The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), The Web of Life (1996), and The Hidden Connections (2002), and co-author of The Systems View of Life (2014).

Life and work

Born in Vienna, Austria, Capra attended the University of Vienna, where he earned his PhD in theoretical physics in 1966. He conducted research in particle physics and systems theory at the University of Paris (1966–1968), the University of California, Santa Cruz (1968–1970), the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1970), Imperial College, London (1971–1974) and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1975–1988). While at Berkeley, he was a member of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, founded in May 1975 by Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann, which met weekly to discuss philosophy and quantum physics. He also taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Berkeley, and San Francisco State University.

He has written popular books on the implications of science, notably The Tao of Physics, subtitled An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. The Tao of Physics asserts that both physics and metaphysics lead inexorably to the same knowledge. After touring Germany in the early 1980s, Capra co-wrote Green Politics with author Charlene Spretnak in 1984.

He is fluent in German, English, French and Italian.

Capra contributed to the screenplay for the 1990 movie Mindwalk, starring Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston and John Heard. The film is loosely based on his book, The Turning Point.

In 1991 Capra co-authored Belonging to the Universe with David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. Using Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as a stepping stone, the book explores parallels between new paradigm thinking in science and in religion; the authors posit that, together, these new paradigms offer remarkably compatible views about the universe.

Capra advocates that Western culture abandon conventional linear thought and the mechanistic views of Descartes. Critiquing the reductionistic Cartesian view that everything can be studied in parts to understand the whole, he encourages a holistic approach. In The Web of Life, Capra focuses on systemic information generated by the relationships among all parts as a significant additional factor in understanding the character of the whole, emphasizing the web-like structure of all systems and the interconnectedness of all parts.

He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy located in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education.

Capra is an Earth Charter International Council member.

His famous quotes are :-

"In Hinduism, Shiva the Cosmic Dancer, is perhaps the most perfect personification of the dynamic universe. Through his dance, Shiva sustains the manifold phenomena in the world, unifying all things by immersing them in his rhythm and making them participate in the dance - a magnificent image of the dynamic unity of the Universe."

Fritjof Capra (2010). “The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism”, p.174, Shambhala Publications

"When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set of neurons to fire in a certain way. The experience of sweetness emerges from that neural activity."

David Diamond, Fritjof Capra (2007). “Theatre for Living: The Art and Science of Community-based Dialogue”, p.169, Trafford Publishing

"Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics."

"The Tao of Physics". Book by Fritjof Capra, 1975.

"When the concept of human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the Cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest sense."

Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi (2014). “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, p.13, Cambridge University Press

Fritjof Capra facts for kids

Life and work

See also