Dennis Flanagan, 85; Longtime Editor of Scientific American

Dennis Flanagan, longtime editor of Scientific American magazine who helped introduce lay readers to complex scientific issues, has died. He was 85.

Flanagan, who worked at the magazine more than three decades, beginning in 1947, died of prostate cancer Jan. 11 at his New York City home.

At Scientific American, Flanagan published pieces from leading figures such as Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

“He had a tremendous influence on science journalism,” said Leon Jaroff, former science editor at Time magazine. “Before, much of science journalism was largely incomprehensible to the layperson.”

Flanagan “could make complex science stories comprehensible to the average reader,” Jaroff said.

A native of New York City, Flanagan started his journalism career in 1941 after graduating from the University of Michigan. He was exempt from military service during World War II because he was partially deaf.

Flanagan started as a sports researcher at Life magazine, but was led into science writing after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

In the 1950s, he ran into trouble with government censors, who prohibited him from publishing -- under threat of the death penalty -- an article, which contained no classified material, on the dangers of the hydrogen bomb. The government eventually allowed a revised version to be published.

Brian Hayes, a senior writer at American Scientist who worked with Flanagan at Scientific American for 15 years, said Flanagan and his partners, Gerard Piel and Donald H. Miller, essentially remade the venerable magazine, whose circulation rose from 40,000 to more than 600,000.

Flanagan is survived by his wife, Barbara; a son and daughter from a previous marriage; two stepdaughters; and four grandchildren.