Conceptual Physical Science Explorations

Paul G. Hewitt was a Silver Medallist Flyweight Boxing Champion for New England State at the age of 17. He was then a cartoonist, sign painter, and uranium prospector before beginning his physics studies.

Hewitt's first book, Conceptual Physics, now in its Ninth Edition, was published in 1971, while he was teaching at City College of San Francisco. He has also served as a guest lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and most recently at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Hewitt recently retired from teaching at the City College of San Francisco and at San Francisco's world-famous science museum, the Exploratorium.

John Suchocki received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1987 from Virginia Commonwealth University, where his research focused on the isolation and characterization of natural products. After a two year post-doc in medicinal chemistry/pharmacology at the Medical College of Virginia, John became a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he began working with his uncle, Paul Hewitt, on Conceptual Physical Science. After a couple of years at the Manoa campus, John transferred to and eventually received tenure from Leeward Community College, one of the University of Hawaii's community colleges. At Leeward CC, his research efforts turned to chemical education, with particular emphasis on liberal arts chemistry courses and distance learning technology. After a decade in Hawaii, John relocated to Vermont with his wife and three children, where he now teaches liberal arts chemistry at Saint Michael's College. Concurrent to his writing and teaching careers, John is also the writer of Conceptual Chemistry, now in its Second Edition, and a producer of multimedia content for science education, including his Conceptual Chemistry Alive! CD-ROM series.