Professor Porter Wear Johnson, 84, of Oak Park, died on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. He was born on Sept. 4, 1942 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
He had a brilliant mind and loved physics, math, and his family. He was a lifelong baseball enthusiast, an Eagle Scout, and a member of the Order of the Arrow. He believed it was important to do the right thing. He attended Tyner High School in Chattanooga, Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, and earned his MA and PhD in Physics at Princeton University.
Dr. Johnson taught physics for 36 years at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. For 16 years he was co-director of SMILE, the Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement program at IIT. He conducted extensive research in theoretical particle physics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and classical mechanics and enjoyed collaborating with other researchers. He wrote academic and instructional texts, including Relativity for the Mind (2007), and Classical Mechanics with Applications (2010). He was affiliated with the American Physical Society and Tau Beta Pi.
He is survived by his wife, Frances Mabry Johnson; his son, Erik (Barbara) Johnson; his daughter, Debbie (Mike) LeGare; his three grandsons, David and Tommy Johnson, and Anthony LeGare; his nephews, Sam (Jenny) and Mike Johnson, and their children; and his dear friend and colleague, Dr. David Atkinson (Jeanne Peijnenburg), of Groningen, the Netherlands. He was preceded in death by his parents, Samuel Wear and Lila Kirkman Johnson and his brother, Samuel Kirkman Johnson.
No service is planned at this time. The family will celebrate their memories privately. Interment will occur at Silverdale Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee with immediate family.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to The Nature Conservancy at https://preserve.nature.org or The Natural Resources Defense Council at https://www.nrdc.org.