The Golden Ratio, Variational Principles, Cyclic and Wave Phenomena, and Quanta

With profound emotion, I (GPG) remember the first time I met Zbigniew Oziewicz, in September 2006, at a Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory (PIRT) meeting at Imperial College, London. I presented my book Relativity, Quanta, Gravitation and Cosmology: A Discussion on the Cognitive Process in Theoretical Physics.13 I expected to be treated like Giordano Bruno, for I drew attention to a mistake in the famous Einstein memoir of 1905. Zbigniew’s response was positive: It is not surprising that Einstein made a mistake: rather that nobody drew attention to it for a century. For 14 years we frequently exchanged emails, though we met only once, in Rome. Zbigniew once told me that, with great pleasure, he was reading a few pages of my book every day. I never received a better compliment. However, our mutual friendship, reflected in our emails, went well beyond a mere professional concern. Zbigniew was a great gentleman and a doughty fighter, but he had a hard time suffering from a severe illness (he eventually recovered). Recently, I emailed him to invite him to review the drafts of five papers. Alas, he had no time to consider them. He was a true scientist who searched for truth rather than for acknowledgement. We have lost a great friend. When one loses a true friend, one loses a precious part of life itself.