10 Facts About Mike Pentz

Michael John Pentz was a physicist, activist in the peace movement, and an influential pioneer of teaching science to university students by distance education.

Mike Pentz was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and died in France.

Mike Pentz was educated in South Africa at St Aidan's College, Grahamstown, and went on to attend the University of Cape Town.

Mike Pentz came to Imperial College in London in 1948 to work on microwave spectrometry and nuclear physics.

Together with fellow Open University academic Steven Rose, Mike Pentz was instrumental in the movement Scientists against Nuclear Arms, which he set up in 1981; SANA was one of the forerunner organisations of Scientists for Global Responsibility.

Related searches

Mike Pentz was described as a charismatic, larger-than-life character, who was committed to the cause of nuclear disarmament.

Mike Pentz pioneered the teaching of science at a distance, overcoming not only a variety of practical difficulties, but many prejudices against the notion that science could be taught by correspondence and television.

Mike Pentz appeared in various BBC television programmes himself, for example talking to a cat breeder about genetics, or demonstrating, with the use of a huge pendulum bob suspended from the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in London, that the plane in which the pendulum swung actually rotated relative to the Cathedral, because of the daily rotation of the Earth.

Consequently, Mike Pentz became a vocal activist for nuclear disarmament, joining many significant peace marches of the 1970s and 1980s.

Mike Pentz never sought to conceal controversial affiliations: he was, for example, a sponsor of the British arm of the leading Soviet front body, the World Peace Council.