Charles J. Goebel

Charles J. Goebel died peacefully at home in his sleep on Feb 18, 2026, two months after his 95th birthday. He was born Dec 16, 1930, in a Chicago suburb, to Harry W. and Gladys (Ibach) Goebel, and grew up in Fox River Grove, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago, where he received his bachelor’s degree at 18 (in 1949) and went on to earn a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1956. After a year as a research associate at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, and a few years as Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester, New York, he joined the Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1961, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1963 and became a Full Professor in 1964. He retired in 2003 but continued as a professor emeritus visiting his office on campus into his 90s.

The following are comments from the department’s application for his emeritus status, just after his retirement:

“For more than forty years Charles Goebel has been a valued member of the faculty until his retirement in February 2003. In fact, he continues to contribute his unique insights to graduates after his retirement.

“Charles has extraordinarily diverse interests in theoretical physics, mostly centered in particle physics, field theory and general relativity. Among his most notable contributions are:

A method for using pion-nucleon scattering to extract the fundamental, but difficult to measure, characteristics of pion-pion scattering. This method (independently discovered by Chew and Low) was of central importance for numerous experiments in the 70s and 80s.

The invention of G-parity which generalizes the concept of charge conjugation parity to iso-spin multiplets. This has been a useful, and often a crucial, tool in the analysis of strong interactions.

The generalization of the famous Veneziano formula to N particles. The Veneziano formula was the starting point in the subsequent development of string theory.

“Charlie Goebel has become legendary among generations of graduate students at Wisconsin to whom he taught field theory, relativity, and many other subjects. Many remember -- some fondly but all with clarity -- his challenging take-home exams. Among the students that he directed in thesis work, we might mention Howard Schnitzer and Bunji Sakita who went on to distinguished academic careers.

“We are all grateful for the inspiration and guidance Charlie has given us and continues to provide. His colleagues will continue to prize the insights and advice on teaching and research questions, that he so generously gave us. He is a ‘theorist’s theorist’.”

His friend and colleague in the UK wrote the following:

“Charlie was a great physicist. He worked and published in fields that did not usually overlap with my much more limited range of expertise. He was an inspiration, but in a very special sense. He showed that a successful physicist could have a deeper and more cultured knowledge of the world than is usually associated with the general public’s image of a physicist. I know of no-one who had spent time with Charlie who did not come away feeling that their life had been enriched.”

-Professor Ronald C Johnson, PhD DSc (Manc) FInstP APSFellow EPS Fellow Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

The depth of his knowledge in theoretical physics was complemented by an interest in nearly every aspect of the natural world and how it worked, from astronomy, chemistry, and geology, to evolution and the entire natural world, to human language and its history.

He loved classical music, and played French horn with family and friends. He loved the outdoors, including hiking and canoeing and camping, preferably in remote areas including the Boundary Waters. He hiked and biked all around Madison, and walked to work in all weathers. He remained active in mind and body until the last months of his life.

He was a quiet man who rarely spoke about himself (or other people) but was always willing to share his knowledge of the most diverse topics to whoever was interested, and he had a remarkable ability to explain difficult concepts lucidly.

He is survived by his wife of 74 years, Belle Catherine (Gorman) Goebel, whom he married in 1951; two sons: George Harry Goebel (and his wife Anna (Martin) Goebel) of Madison, Wisconsin and John Phillip Goebel of Berkeley, California; two grandchildren: Elizabeth Catherine (Goebel) Johnson (and her husband David Johnson) of Island Lake, Illinois and Karl John Goebel of Madison; and one great-grandchild: Katherine Anne Johnson of Madison.

"He was a man. Take him for all in all, / I shall not look upon his like again." - Hamlet, Act I, Scene II

All Faiths Funeral & Cremation Services of Madison is assisting the family. Online condolences can be shared at www.866allfaiths.com.