Richard A. Mould
March 4, 1927 ~ April 11, 2018
PEABODY, MA- Richard A. Mould, 91, passed away on April 11, 2018 in Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers.
Born in Reading, PA on March 4, 1927, he was the son of the late Donald and Catherine (Fernau) Mould. Richard was raised and educated in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania and graduated in 1945. He went on to Lehigh University and then received his master’s and doctorate degrees from Yale University. Richard also served his country in WWII and the Korean War. During WWII he served with the United States Army and during the Korean War he served with the United States Navy. Richard had been a professor of physics for many years at Stony Brook University, New York. He was the first professor they hired.
He is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Jeffrey and Stella Daniels and their daughter Kira of Seattle, WA, his daughter and son-in-law, Nancy and Gary Boudreau of Cambridge, MA, stepdaughters, Cynthia Fischer and her husband, Bill of Long Island, NY and Madalyn Repaci of Florida, step grandchildren, Kolin, Erik, Aaron and Brody, and his former wives’, Dolores Lentz of Cornwell, PA and Marlene Potter of Coconut Grove, FL. He was predeceased by his half-sister, Phyllis.
Richard was much beloved and will be remembered for his kind heart, sense of humor and brilliance in the area of physics.
Richard’s family will receive friends and family from 2-4PM on Saturday, April 14, 2018 at C.R. Lyons & Sons, Funeral Directors, 28 Elm Street, Danvers, MA. Burial will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made in Richard’s name to The Nature Conservancy, Attn: Treasury, 4245 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 100, Arlington, VA, 22203 or www.nature.org
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This man made a profound difference in my life. He soars with the angels now. All these years gone by and I am glad we had a chance to talk again a couple of years ago. My deepest condolences to Nancy and Jeff and your families.
Remembering Richard A. Mould
By his son:
Thank you for paying respects to our dad. I’m Richard’s only son Jeff. My sister Nancy, her husband Gary and his beloved granddaughter Kira are also here today.
Want to share with you a bit about who my Dad was/is and what he has given us.
First, it is important to mention/remember my dad’s dad (OD).
My dad’s dad wanted to be a Yankee pitcher during the depression and had to provide for his family by managing a department store. He was an athlete, a golfer, a footballer, and a baseball player who had a swaggered way of knowing you like him. My mother adored him and felt he was the father she always wanted.
My grandfather gave us an incredible family history to learn from. My daughter is a Daughter of the American Revolution. Our Pennsylvania Dutch enriched family heritage includes businessmen, one who donated a pagoda in a park to the city of Reading, artists and musicians.
One of the very few times, I saw my Dad really cry was his remembering how his dad was always there for him.
My Dad was unique compared to his father and our family tree: He was less athletic and more academic. He flew planes in the fields of Pennsylvania before doing well in Math and Physics at Lehigh University then went on to get a Masters and PHD in Physics at Yale. During my dad’s life he also:
· Served our country in the Navy and Army
· Founded a Unitarian Church
· Protested for civil and equal rights
· Ran therapy-encounter groups that could make today’s licensed-therapists cringe
· Sculpted in metals and clay when he was suffering
· Painted landscapes and portraits
· Read books pushing aside dyslexia
· Published books on in his 80s on relativity, consciousness, and purpose
· Published physics papers opining with peers
· Philosophized and provided his own philosophical frameworks
· Practiced an intellectual grit
· Taught at NY’s Stony Brook University for 35 years as their longest tenured professor.
· Retired after 45 years of teaching and ten years of trying to retire.
· Contributed to Nature Conservancy and human rights type causes
I remember: watching JFK campaign on my dad’s shoulders at Islip Long Island Airport, his tears during JFK and Martin Luther King’ s assignations, and his aliveness protesting for his heartfelt causes.
My dad had a: strong mind, very good sense of humor, sensitive heart, and an acute bullshit detector. There were things this born in 1929 Depression-era man didn’t get about the world we live in like paying more for a retail-brand experience or why our choice stood behind this predictive turmoil presidency.
My father is one of the lucky ones: he celebrated his 91st birthday this last March 4th.
On April 9th, when Dad saw that I visited him and I saw he didn’t have much energy I picked up a copy of a book he had around called “The Return”. It is a well-written memoir on a man’s journey trying to find out what happened to his missing dad, understand him and the terrain for on how to cross that chasm between them.
I sat by him on his bed and put one arm on him while reading chapters of “The Return” to him. He reached for me and continually touched me with a softness I have never felt before. Our guards left us and we looked at each other’s closing speechlessly eyes saying: “We are here together”. Between us, this remains within me better than words.
My hope is that my family, particularly my daughter, discovers our family’s quirky human history. My hope is that she proudly discovers her papa as a humble man who helped contribute by moving us towards an evolving enlightenment based upon his commitments to science, its progress, reason, and contribution towards our humanism.
My family, thank you for being here today.
In Remembrance of My Father, Richard Mould
By Nancy Boudreau
There are three characteristics I particularly appreciated about my father: his sense of humor, his intelligence and most importantly his kind heart.
Regarding his humor:
I appreciate that puns, dry humor, wit and sarcasm were staples in our family and that he encouraged them all. Responses to jokes ranged from wry smiles and feigned groans to outright belly laughs. I can picture him both delivering and being on the receiving end of jokes. Even when he wasn’t feeling well and was in the doctor’s office for example he was making sarcastic remarks. As recently as last Sunday he was joking and laughing with family.
I admired how intelligent he was:
He was very bright. He received his PhD from Yale in physics, taught, and published books and articles regarding physics. There’s a disconnect between the theory of relativity and the premise of quantum physics. He believed and wrote about how he thought these two theories could relate to one another.
Despite his intelligence and accomplishments he was very humble. My mom told me that they voted for John F. Kennedy. When he won my father took off the bumper sticker supporting Kennedy from their car. He removed it because if it was on after the fact, he told her it would be considered bragging. I think that was the Pennsylvania Dutch part of him. He was never one to boast or draw attention to himself.
Regarding his kind heart:
My father was by nature a very solitary person but his neighbors at Brooksby Village enjoyed their time with him. The ones that I knew described him as a sweet man.
On a personal note my father’s longevity was a gift in that it allowed our relationship to grow that much more over the years. The last few months have been particularly sweet.
He also showed a great deal of appreciation when being helped by family that was endearing. I’m not going to paint a Pollyanna picture because he had some crotchety moments, but they were few by comparison and often directed at others.
My father’s life subsided naturally. He finished writing within the last year. He was no longer interested in keeping up with the news, politics and reading. His natural heart was giving out but the importance of relationships came to the forefront. This especially pertained to family. In February I went away for a month with his very emphatic blessing. He told me he would never want to hold me back. I told him I wanted to spend more time with him when I came back and believed that he would be alive when I returned in March. A few weeks after I returned he knew that my brother Jeff and niece Kira were coming to visit. I think that was an important milestone for him, one last thing to live for. It was not planned but additional family flew in last minute to see him and say their goodbyes. This time with family meant a lot to him and he rallied as best he could to be with us. He significantly declined shortly after almost everyone left. I was with him when he passed away peacefully.
Yesterday my brother Jeff, husband Gary, niece Kira and myself were in his apartment. His wallet was in his study. It had money in it. We said it would be used towards dinner that night, his treat. Next to his desk he had on the wall the words to the first stanza of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence…
We went to Turners Seafood that night, the place we brought him for his 90th birthday. The Sound of Silence played in the background at the restaurant. We made note of it. I believe he was speaking to us, and is in a good place.
I love and will miss him.
I was an undergraduate physics major at SBU from 2004-2008, and would like to share two stories about Professor Mould.
As an incoming freshman in ’04, I was eager to start my physics major and talk to a professional physicist about various aspects of physics. As I looked through the SBU faculty pages, I came across Professor Mould’s page and was intrigued to find that his work included relativity theory, on the one hand, and attempts to connect consciousness with quantum physics, on the other. So I excitedly contacted Professor Mould a couple weeks before classes started in Fall of 2004, and asked if he would be willing to meet with me to discuss certain physics topics. He was kind enough to oblige, and we had what was (for me) a thrilling discussion about many topics, including the foundations of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind (areas he was working in or interested in at the time). Though he warned me that my interests in these latter two topics would not sit well with my physics professors, he also encouraged me to continue thinking about them and to not be afraid of exploring my own ideas. That stuck with me. Near the end of our conversation, he asked me what graduate courses I’ll be taking the upcoming semester, to which I clarified that I am just an undergraduate freshman–he was taken aback and said he never met an undergraduate freshman who was “even aware” of the foundations of quantum mechanics and philosophy of mind. He then suggested that we keep in touch.
A couple years later, I gave a seminar for the physics department, on the topic of Bohmian quantum mechanics. I invited Professor Mould, and to my delight, he showed up! After the talk, he sent me the following email:
Dear Maaneli
I was there for most of the talk you gave on Bohmian quantum mechanics. I was one of those who gave you a bad time. I have never thought much of Bohm’s ideas, but I agree that his theory should be on the table. No one really knows what is going on.
I have a foundation theory of my own. I attach a copy of my latest version in pdf or Word. I would appreciate any feedback – even if you give me a ‘bad time’.
Regards
Richard Mould
Regrettably, I never got around to reading his latest version to give him a ‘bad time’ about it. I also don’t remember him giving me a bad time during my talk, but his attending my talk and his message afterward was powerful encouragement that I needed at the time. Eventually I completed my PhD in theoretical physics (at Utrecht University), specializing in the foundations of quantum mechanics (the topic I discussed with Professor Mould the first time I met him), but to my regret, I never returned to Stony Brook to meet with him and thank him for his encouragements.
My deepest condolences go out to your family. I hope these stories have added something positive to the memories of Professor Mould.
Sincerely,
Dr. Maaneli “Max” Derakhshani
SBU class of ’08