Lenzen, Victor F. (Victor Fritz), 1890-1975

Died 1975.

Biography

Victor Fritz Lenzen was born December 14, 1890 in San Josi, California to Theodore W. and Kate (Schnoor) Lenzen. He attended Bay Area schools and graduated in 1909 from the California School of Mechanical Arts. He began his studies at tile University of California in engineering, but, more interested in pure theory, he changed his major to philosophy. He graduated in 1913 and was awarded a scholarship for graduate study at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1916.

At Harvard, the lectures of Bertrand Russell and Josiah Royce and their emphasis on mathematical logic turned his interest towards physics. After a year of study in Europe and a year as an assistant in philosophy at Harvard, he enrolled in graduate studies in physics at the University of California in 1918. There he was appointed instructor in 1921 and professor of physics in 1939.

His special interest in physics was mathematical logic, as demonstrated in his lectures for his graduate course in advanced dynamics which he taught until his retirement in 1958.

Active in University affairs, he served on various academic senate committees and was for many years in charge of tile lower division office of the Physics Department. While serving on the University of California Press editorial committee in 1946, his investigation of a controversial paper on archeology led him to a study of the figure of Dionysos on textiles.

An inquiry in the 1960's about his meeting with Mrs. Charles S. Peirce in 1914, when as a graduate student he assisted in picking up C. S. Peirce's papers, launched him on a study of Charles S., his wife Juliette, and Benjamin Peirce, which he pursued until his death on July 18, 1975.