Freeman Dyson, math genius turned visionary technologist, dies at 96

After an early breakthrough on light and matter, he became a writer who challenged climate science and pondered space exploration and nuclear warfare

Freeman J Dyson, a mathematical prodigy who left his mark on subatomic physics before turning to messier subjects like Earth’s environmental future and the morality of war, died on Friday at a hospital near Princeton, N J He was 96.

His daughter Mia Dyson confirmed the death. His son, George, said Dr. Dyson had fallen three days earlier in the cafeteria of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, “his academic home for more than 60 years,” as the institute put it in a news release.

As a young graduate student at Cornell University in 1949, Dr. Dyson wrote a