Murray Gell-Mann, Who Peered at Particles and Saw the Universe, Dies at 89:

Murray Gell-Mann, who transformed physics with his preternatural ability to find hidden patterns among the tiny particles that make up the universe, earning a Nobel Prize, died on Friday at his home in Santa Fe. He was 89.

The author of the obit wrote Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics.

I’m not as broadly read today as I was when I was younger. Much of my teen years were spent reading popular science books on physics. Murray Gell-Mann regularly made a showing, whether as a principal character, or a cameo. He was one of the great ones of our world, and his passing makes us all poorer.