Peter Lindenfeld, Rutgers physics professor and longtime Princeton resident, dies at 100

A memorial service will be held on Jan. 17.

Peter Lindenfeld, a retired Rutgers University physics professor, celebrated educator and 65-year Princeton resident, died Nov. 21 at the age of 100 while holding the hands of his children, Tom and Naomi. He lived most recently at the Stonebridge community in Skillman.

Born March 10, 1925, in Vienna, Austria, Lindenfeld was the son of Bela and Elda (Lachs) Lindenfeld, both physicians. His family fled Austria after the 1938 German annexation. Following a period of recovery from tuberculosis at a children’s sanatorium in Switzerland, he joined his mother in England before the two emigrated to Canada on an agricultural visa. He attended high school in Vancouver and later earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the University of British Columbia.

Lindenfeld moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies in physics at Columbia University, where he earned his doctorate. While living at International House, he became immersed in New York City’s postwar arts scene. At a John Cage “happening” at the Eighth Street Club, he met textile artist Lore Kadden, a Black Mountain College graduate. They married on May 31, 1953. Lore Lindenfeld died in 2010.

Lindenfeld joined the Rutgers University faculty and became a full professor in 1966, retiring in 1999 after more than 45 years. His research focused on solid-state superconductivity, but his greatest passion was making physics accessible to non-majors. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and a longtime member of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Rutgers awarded him the 1988 Warren I. Sussman Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the AAPT honored him in 1989 with the Robert A. Millikan Award for notable and creative contributions to physics education. In 2001, Rutgers established an endowed chair in his name in experimental condensed-matter physics. He later co-authored Physics, The First Science, published by Rutgers University Press in 2011.

His sabbaticals included time at Oxford; Tirupati, India; the University of Paris D’Orsay; and Kyoto University in Japan.

In the 1960s, Lindenfeld and his wife began spending summers in Barnard, Vermont, after sending their children to the Farm and Wilderness Camps. They bought a small cottage there and spent summers walking Bowman Road, visiting the Barnard General Store and swimming in Silver Lake.

Lindenfeld was active in numerous social justice causes and was a founding member and long-serving secretary of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization. In his final 15 years, he shared his life with his partner, Mary Clurman, who died in August. He became quickly involved in the Stonebridge community during the past two and a half years, which marked his 100th birthday with a celebration in March.

A lifelong learner and collector, Lindenfeld amassed pre-Columbian, Ashanti and other art; collected ancient Arabic and Judaic coins; played recorder with the Princeton Recorder Society; and spoke German, French, English, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and some Russian. He enjoyed photography, mycology, bookmaking, origami, officiating weddings and maintaining friendships. He and Lore were deeply influenced by Japanese culture and visited Japan several times.

He is survived by his son, Tom Lindenfeld, and Tom’s partner, Becky Leise, of Princeton; his daughter, Naomi Lindenfeld, and her husband, Michael Bosworth, of Brattleboro, Vt.; and his grandson, Sam Lindenfeld, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Lindenfeld’s memoir, A Century in the Making – A Hundred-Year Journey from Refugee to American, was published shortly before his death. He worked on it until his final days.

A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, 50 Cherry Hill Road.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Princeton Community Democratic Organization or Sustainable Princeton in honor of his support for the Guyot Walk restoration project.