Peter was one of my first department heads at Bell Labs in the 1960's. His deep understanding of physics, his illuminating insights into the meaning of new results, his encouragement and his friendship wwere instrumental for many of us in launching phsyics careers. During this period he published many highly influential papers in his field.

It is remarkable that thirty five years later he contributed equally incisive interpretation as coauthor in "Nature" that has opened up a whole new class of photonic devices and that has been cited over 4000 times in physics journals. 

His ability to inspire so many others led to senior leadership positions in science research at Bell Labs, MIT and the NEC Research Institute in Princeton.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you and the family at this difficult moment. We trust that with time sorrow will be tempered by warm and enduring memories. 

Dear Mia and Whitney,

As a former employee of the Francis Bitter National Magnet Lab, I am writing to express my sincere condolences on the passing of your father.  Peter was the warmest, kindest, most giving person I can remember.  The relocation of the Magnet Lab to Florida impacted me personally at the time when I had just lost my parents, and it was Peter who put me in touch with Physics faculty who had an opening for an assistant in their group.  I am forever grateful to Peter for his interest and concern on my behalf.

It seems most cruel that such a warm, outgoing and engaged person as Peter would have to bear the limiting, isolating effects that he (and you) experienced.  I will always remember him most fondly.

Sincerely,
Margaret O'Meara

As Peter Wolff’s grandson my encounters with his professional and intellectual side were infrequent. I mostly remember him taking me out into the garden, discussing basketball strategies, and other odds and ends of that sort. However, I do remember one specific instance, while probably long forgotten by all involved (I was merely an observer), which for some reason I recall with distinct clarity, and I believe it may have influenced me in a semi-subconscious way. It was at a party in his old apartment in Boston, which was to celebrate the artistic accomplishments of my grandmother, Catherine Wolff. As I was either the only, or one of the only children in attendance, I remember wandering through the party aimlessly for sometime. But then, a rather intense discussion began to emerge in the kitchen which my grandfather found himself embroiled in somehow. The discussion concerned the probabilities involved in a series of coin flips. While most of people involved in the discussion were civilian coin flippers, my grandfather was definitely not, and he interceded to provide a reasoned explanation of the difference between the probability of flipping five heads in a row, and the probability of flipping a fifth heads once four have already been flipped. To a ten year old child, who was not especially talented at math or related subjects, his explanation was crystal clear, and I think that it has probably informed the ways in which I approach logical problems to this day. Perhaps this seems small in comparison to Peter’s scientific achievements, but I hope that this anecdote may remind people of his everyday contributions to intellectual conversations which took place outside of MIT or Bell Labs, and in most cases went undocumented.

Fuzzy scratchy brown fur      
red jacket
gold buttons
the middle one ripped

What I have left of you
I keep close to my heart

I remember you put that bear on a chair
you took care of it as if it were your child
You smiled with tender pride
You could still laugh then
talk to me
speak

But the monster was killing you slowly
separating your mind from your body
erasing memories
You gave me that bear
you gave me your world

My tears splashed down on the fur
as the ambulance took you away
I remember
putting away your forgotten memories
packing up your past
lifting up the mattress
seeing the deep red marks you had left behind

This whole journey
has been like a horror movie
Each day you lose more contact with the world
I just wish you could understand
how much you mean to me
you are a amazing person
An amazing person
misjudged by others.
All they see is a crazy man
but they should not judge someone
by the view on the outside
when the inside is a whole different story.

they don't know the real you
I do
I just wish I could tell you
I miss you papa.  

     Peter was a genuinely sincere, modest, humble, caring, loving, and giving person.  His smile always put people at ease and made them willing to be open with him.  My friends all adored him.  
     I first got to know Peter when he and Cathy moved to Princeton to join my husband at NEC.  We became neighbors and very good friends.  After Cathy and Dawon passed away, Peter and I remained good friends and eventually became close companions.  We would take turns spending time together in Princeton and Boston.  I enjoyed meeting Peter's family and some of his MIT colleagues.   And I know he enjoyed spending time with my children, particularly at my daughter Kim's Thanksgiving dinners.
     I will always cherish the memories of our time together.   

In La Jolla (1964) our father once led us on a hike down the cliffs to the beach. The cliffs there were tall, steep and even a little frightening for the two of us. But our father seemed unfazed as he led us down the precipice, and we loyally scrambled to follow. Maybe this was the way that his own father had led him on those famous improvised, adventurous hikes of his -- we'd heard a few stories.

On the beach we discovered a glider that had just landed on the sand (the La Jolla cliffs were a favorite place for gliders to ride thermal updrafts -- on some days you could spy dozens of them floating in the air over the cliffs). The impulse to touch the glider was irresistible -- and the whole thing immediately tipped towards us, as it was built of very light materials. Then a small plane came down to rescue the glider. As the plane began to take off of the beach and pull the glider back into the sky, we stood on either side, helping to steady the glider's wings just before take-off. 

This memory is just a fragment that has seemed very specific to our father, but also seemed so light and airborne itself that we both felt the need to check with each other, to make sure that it really happened.

 

I remember him doing equations at home with a Heiniken at hand. Calm, and a loving man. Now you face his absence, god bless.

Mia, I am so sad. I often tell stories of how fascinating your father was. I was always impressed that he seemed so interested in other things other than his own field. Even though I didn't know him that well I would say he is someone I have always admired. Conisdering my father checked out when I was five years old, I am in awe of people who have these great fathers. I'm sure you and Whitney know how lucky you are. He died in the same week as Seamus Heany. He is in good company.

I remember your dad from so many years ago. He was an extremely likeable, intelligent and measured man - a humble and impressive person and kind of the perfect adult as considered by my teenage eyes

During our friendship with Peter Wolff and his family I knew him as a renowned Bell Labs research scientist, devoted family man, good friend and pleasant neighbor.  I worked with him for many years at Bell Labs, our kids went to school together and we even inherited the family cat.  We shared many good times and could not have found better neighbors.

So my dear friend rest in peace you rightly deserve.

John Drobny

I will remember many good times with your family. The earliest non-memory is a picture of you and me before our brothers were born on a walk with our parents, you holding your father's hand, I my mother's hand. We had several outings and trips together, most memorable meeting up in Wyoming, the Grand Tetons. We stayed in a fake-log cabin hotel, we kids in one room and then our parents in their respective rooms. We rode horses because we were too young to do a long, long hike. The parents walked.    When you and I were four, your Nana Wolff sent you and me the most beautifully crafted, hand made clowns that were big, almost our size. Mine, Bobo, was blue and yours red. I remember thinking what a wonderful grandmother, and now I think her goodness must have rubbed off on your father. He seemed so kind.   I will always remember your father's distinctive and infectious laugh. He had such a dear disposition, so nice to us girls as we were growing up, from driving us to French lessons of a Saturday morning with Mrs. Ballentine -- in your car, Mouse, to making scrambled eggs for you and me when we had a sleep over at your house. Somehow that really impressed me to see a father cooking! I admired that.   And finally, in the summer of about 1984, I took a course at MIT, and your parents were so gracious to have me stay with them for the month of July, I believe it was. Your parents had such grand taste, and I enjoyed the house on Brewster Street. But most of all, it was delightful to sit up and talk to them at night. I really got to know them as an adult, and I appreciated that a lot, their interest and intellect.   I will remember your father and mother as pillars of my childhood, you--always drawing--as one of my good, good friends.

H. A. Thaler
University High School
5714 Grove Street
Oakland California 

                                              January 18, 1940
 

Dean of Undergraduates
University of California
Berkeley, California

Dear Sir,

I would like to recommend Peter A Wolff, who will be graduated by University High School this coming June, for a scholarship at the University.

Peter is a member of our experimental, two-hour Physical Science class and is thus in competition with some of the best minds in the school. He easily tops the group. Besides the interest and cooperation one would expect in an intelligent, well-adjusted student, Peter possesses a very rare quality of innate scholarship; it is revealed in his reading the entire chemistry book before the semester was a month old -- not as a stunt, but because he wanted to know its contents. It is revealed in his reports to the class and in his comments about them in post-mortem; these comments display a real ability at objective self-evaluation and a democratic concern over their value to the class. It is revealed in his contributions to discussions by the class; Peter seldom makes a statement which he is not prepared to support with evidence from observation or principle.

Since the above remarks are based on subjective evidence, I should like to refer to some more objective data. besides I.Q., Reading age and marks, we have also Peter's record of achievement on certain Progressive Education Association tests: Interpretation of Data, Application of Principles, and Nature of Proof. These tests measure aspects of abilities to reason inductively, deductively, and logically, respectively; they do not correlate higher than 0.5 with each other. On each of these tests, Peer stands at the head of the class -- a remarkable record.

Peter is well liked, a leader in his social group, and a good citizen. He is respected by teachers and classmates alike and it is a pleasure to speak in his behalf.

If there is any further information that I can supply, please call on me.

Yours truly,

Herbet A Thelen
Science Department, University High School

Mia and Whitney both remember their father's descriptions of a late research interest, having something to do with very small holes. We loved the idea of the “tiny holes”! 


Perhaps this is it:

Near-field scanning optical microscope having a sub-wavelength aperture array for enhanced light transmission 

Patent # US 6052238 A

Inventors: 

Thomas W. Ebbeson, Hadi F. Ghaemi, Tineke Thio, Peter A. Wolff

In his quiet undemonstrative manner, our father was always looking after us.

Whitney has a memory of one of his first little league games. While up at bat, he swung at a third strike, which also hit him on the arm. Many fathers convened and argued loudly, as if the world depended on it, towering over Whitney -- should he take first base or had he struck out? Whitney started crying, though his father was the only one to notice. His father walked over and took Whitney by the hand, then walked with him to first base without saying a word to anyone else, then went back to where he had been sitting. The effect was instant -- the argument was resolved and the game resumed, as if nothing had ever happened.

Mia remembers: as a kid I once made a special staff, which was wonderful and precious to me, a kind of talisman. The staff had a hole drilled through the top through which I had threaded a chain hung with charms. When a neighborhood boy wandered by and stole it from me, my Dad ran out and rescued my magic staff. And then, totally surprising me (he was one of the most peaceful men we knew), he chased the boy up the street and away. 

Mia and Whitney remember their father scribbling away on yellow legal pads in the living room in the evenings, both aware and not aware of his family around him. Peering at those pages afterwards, we saw that they were filled with incomprehensible mathematical hieroglyphics.

We have always needed help in understanding what our father's work was about. He never advertised his accomplishments. Often the fact that he was a physicist seemed small and incidental, he was just our father.

Sometimes we could faintly hear him rehearsing lectures in his bedroom.

Whitney remembers watching him estimate and guess the number of golf balls in a large glass container in a sporting goods store in Summit, N.J., which was part of a store contest. He won the contest, bringing home a free pair of golf shoes, and Whitney (who was 10 at the time) decided that he had an exceptionally intelligent father.

Mia remembers complaining to him, at a young age, that she felt bored. "How can you be bored when you have a mind?" he responded, genuinely curious. 

Mia also remembers slipping into a lecture of his at a conference in Scotland and not understanding a word of it, except that it was about "spin-flip theory".

Our father often visited Mia when she was in art school in Brooklyn, taking her to the local art store to buy a bundle of art supplies, a windfall for her. As the clerk added up the tally, Mia could see her father effortlessly adding up those same sums in his head, as if he was always naturally amusing himself with numbers like that.