Dr. Arkady Kheyfets

Dr. Arkady Kheyfets, age 74, former expert in Einstein’s theory of general relativity and Professor of Mathematics at North Carolina State University (NCSU), passed away fighting for life on November 27, 2021, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Born on June 14, 1947, in Belarus; he was the spouse of Lyudmila Kheyfets and was the son of the late Michael and Helen Kheyfets.

His universe wrapped around his late wife Lyudmila Kheyfets, and he visited her resting place multiple times a week for over a decade and a half since she passed. They were soul mates for eternity. They both had to painfully leave their family and immigrated to Houston, TX and became citizens of the United States coming from the former Soviet Union during the height of the cold war in the early 80’s through Rome, Italy. Arkady became a student (1981) and graduate (1986) of the legendary John Archibald Wheeler (JAW coined the phrase “Black Hole” and studied with Niels Bohr). Arkady was a bold revolutionary genius in mathematical physics and laid the foundations for Wheeler’s austerity in the laws of physics for his dissertation, constructed a post-York canonical formulation of quantum gravity, and in a recent discussion we had with him, he considered a more recent published work with his students as his deepest research on the coupling of Maxwell’s electromagnetic field to gravitation. While at NCSU he spent substantial time working with his peer and colleague, Warner Miller, at the Air Force Research Laboratory and at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Arkady was a beacon of light for civil liberties here and traveled across the US with Lyudmila and interacted with all walks of life and got to know the heartbeat of the US with his wife. He loved his cars, owning numerous Lincoln Town Cars, then a Mercury Marauder and most recently a Dodge Charger. He was a man of contradictions, as was outwardly obvious of a mathematical physicist driving a muscle car --- fast! Although, he insisted that the 500 horsepower made him and his wife safer on the highways.

Arkady and Lyudmila Kheyfets lived their lives fully!

A Service of Remembrance will be held on Friday, December 17, 2021, at 2:00 pm in the Mausoleum Chapel of Raleigh Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to NC State University's Department of Mathematics,'Mathematics Enhancement Fund' at go.ncsu.edu/support_math. You can select that the gift is in Dr. Kheyfets' memory.

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