Physics Resource Guide: Important Physicists & Astronomers

From Jim Holt, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Does the World Exist?, comes an entertaining and accessible guide to the most profound scientific and mathematical ideas of recent centuries in When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought. Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who've tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction--and whether the universe truly has a future.

A dazzling group biography of the early twentieth-century thinkers who transformed the way the world thought about math and science Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came together in post-World War I Vienna to present the latest theories in mathematics, science, and philosophy and to build a strong foundation for scientific investigation. Composed of such luminaries as Kurt Gö and Rudolf Carnap, and stimulated by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle left an indelible mark on science. Exact Thinking in Demented Times tells the often outrageous, sometimes tragic, and never boring stories of the men who transformed scientific thought. A revealing work of history, this landmark book pays tribute to those who dared to reinvent knowledge from the ground up.

A revelatory story of the woman who made foundational contributions to science and mathematics and persevered in the face of discrimination. Emmy Noether's mathematical genius enabled Einstein to bring his General Theory of Relativity-the basis of our current theory of gravity-to fruition. On a larger scale, what came to be known as "Noether's Theorem"--called by a Nobel laureate "the single most profound result in all of physics"--supplied the basis for the most accurate theory in the history of physics, the Standard Model, which forms our modern theory of matter.   Noether's life story is equally important and revelatory in understanding the pernicious nature of sexual prejudice in the sciences, revealing the shocking discrimination against one of the true intellectual giants of the twentieth century, a woman effectively excluded from the opportunities given to her male counterparts. Noether's personality and optimistic spirit, as Lee Phillips reveals, enabled her unique genius to persevere and arrive at insights that still astonish those who encounter them a century later.   

A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2024 A Financial Times Best Book of 2024 A Kirkus Best Book of 2024 A Daily Telegraph Best Book of 2024 A "beautifully composed and revealing" (Financial Times) biography of the dazzling and painful life of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose--"a stunning achievement" (Kai Bird, American Prometheus). When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a "world behind the world" of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world's most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists.    Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and beauty of his discoveries. However, as Patchen Barss documents in The Impossible Man, success came at a price: He was attuned to the secrets of the universe, but struggled to connect with loved ones, especially the women who care for or worked with him.   Both erudite and poetic, The Impossible Man draws on years of research and interviews, as well as previously unopened archives to present a moving portrait of Penrose the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and Roger the human being. It reveals not just the extraordinary life of Roger Penrose, but asks who gets to be a genius, and who makes the sacrifices that allow one man to be one.

Galileo's trial by the Inquisition is one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of science and religion. Today, we tend to see this event in black and white--Galileo all white, the Church all black. Galileo in Rome presents a much more nuanced account of Galileo's relationship with Rome. The book offers a fascinating account of the six trips Galileo made to Rome, from his first visit at age 23, as an unemployed mathematician, to his final fateful journey to face the Inquisition. The authors reveal why the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, set forth in Galileo's Dialogue, stirred a hornet's nest of theological issues, and they argue that, despite these issues, the Church might have accepted Copernicus if there had been solid proof. More interesting, they show how Galileo dug his own grave. To get the imprimatur, he brought political pressure to bear on the Roman Censor. He disobeyed a Church order not to teach the heliocentric theory. And he had a character named Simplicio (which in Italian sounds like simpleton) raise the same objections to heliocentrism that the Pope had raised with Galileo. The authors show that throughout the trial, until the final sentence and abjuration, the Church treated Galileo with great deference, and once he was declared guilty commuted his sentence to house arrest. Here then is a unique look at the life of Galileo as well as a strikingly different view of an event that has come to epitomize the Church's supposed antagonism toward science.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS In a memoir of family bonding and cutting-edge physics for readers of Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality and Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?, Amanda Gefter tells the story of how she conned her way into a career as a science journalist--and wound up hanging out, talking shop, and butting heads with the world's most brilliant minds.   At a Chinese restaurant outside of Philadelphia, a father asks his fifteen-year-old daughter a deceptively simple question: "How would you define nothing?" With that, the girl who once tried to fail geometry as a conscientious objector starts reading up on general relativity and quantum mechanics, as she and her dad embark on a life-altering quest for the answers to the universe's greatest mysteries.        Before Amanda Gefter became an accomplished science writer, she was a twenty-one-year-old magazine assistant willing to sneak her and her father, Warren, into a conference devoted to their physics hero, John Wheeler. Posing as journalists, Amanda and Warren met Wheeler, who offered them cryptic clues to the nature of reality: The universe is a self-excited circuit, he said. And, The boundary of a boundary is zero. Baffled, Amanda and Warren vowed to decode the phrases--and with them, the enigmas of existence. When we solve all that, they agreed, we'll write a book.   Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn is that book, a memoir of the impassioned hunt that takes Amanda and her father from New York to London to Los Alamos. Along the way, they bump up against quirky science and even quirkier personalities, including Leonard Susskind, the former Bronx plumber who invented string theory; Ed Witten, the soft-spoken genius who coined the enigmatic M-theory; even Stephen Hawking.   What they discover is extraordinary: the beginnings of a monumental paradigm shift in cosmology, from a single universe we all share to a splintered reality in which each observer has her own. Reality, the Gefters learn, is radically observer-dependent, far beyond anything of which Einstein or the founders of quantum mechanics ever dreamed--with shattering consequences for our understanding of the universe's origin. And somehow it all ties back to that conversation, to that Chinese restaurant, and to the true meaning of nothing.   Throughout their journey, Amanda struggles to make sense of her own life--as her journalism career transforms from illusion to reality, as she searches for her voice as a writer, as she steps from a universe shared with her father to at last carve out one of her own. It's a paradigm shift you might call growing up.   By turns hilarious, moving, irreverent, and profound, Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn weaves together story and science in remarkable ways. By the end, you will never look at the universe the same way again. Praise for Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn   "Nothing quite prepared me for this book. Wow. Reading it, I alternated between depression--how could the rest of us science writers ever match this?--and exhilaration."--Scientific American   "To Do: Read Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn. Reality doesn't have to bite."--New York   "A zany superposition of genres . . . It's at once a coming-of-age chronicle and a father-daughter road trip to the far reaches of this universe and 10,500 others."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This book is Gamow at his best, which means the very best in science for the layman." -- Library Journal Widely recognized as one of the 20th century's foremost physicists, George Gamow was also an unusually capable popularizer of science. His talents are vividly revealed in this exciting and penetrating explanation of how the central laws of physical science evolved -- from Pythagoras' discovery of frequency ratios in the 6th century B.C. to today's research on elementary particles. Unlike many books on physics which focus entirely on fact and theory with little or no historic detail, the present work incorporates fascinating personal and biographical data about the great physicists of past and present. Thus Dr. Gamow discusses on an equal basis the trail of Galileo and the basic laws of mechanics which he discovered, or gives his personal recollections about Niels Bohr along with detailed discussion of Bohr's atomic model. You'll also find revealing glimpses of Newton, Huygens, Heisenberg, Pauli, Einstein, and many other immortals of science. Each chapter is centered around a single great figure, or at most two, with other physicists of the era and their contributions forming a background. Major topics include the dawn of physics, the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, Newtonian physics, heat as energy, electricity, the relativistic revolution, quantum theory, and the atomic nucleus and elementary particles. As Dr. Gamow points out in the Preface, the aim of this book is to give the reader the feeling of what physics is, and what kind of people physicists are. This delightfully informal approach, combined with the book's clear, easy-to-follow explanations, will especially appeal to young readers but will stimulate and entertain science enthusiasts of all ages. 1961 edition. "The whole thing is a tour de force covering all the important landmarks." -- Guardian

Cline recounts the development of quantum theory, capturing the atmosphere of argument and discovery among physicists in the 1920s. She explores the backgrounds of the major figures--Rutherford, Bohr, Planck, Einstein--separately, but draws them together as they begin to consider each other's questions about the nature of matter.

A man and his equation: the anxiety-plagued nineteenth-century physicist who contributed significantly to our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. Ludwig Boltzmann's grave in Vienna's Central Cemetery bears a cryptic epitaph: S = k log W. This equation was Boltzmann's great discovery, and it contributed significantly to our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. In Anxiety and the Equation, Eric Johnson tells the story of a man and his equation: the anxiety-plagued nineteenth-century physicist who did his most important work as he struggled with mental illness. Johnson explains that "S" in Boltzmann's equation refers to entropy, and that entropy is the central quantity in the second law of thermodynamics. The second law is always on, running in the background of our lives, providing a way to differentiate between past and future. We know that the future will be a state of higher entropy than the past, and we have Boltzmann to thank for discovering the equation that underlies that fundamental trend. Johnson, accessibly and engagingly, reassembles Boltzmann's equation from its various components and presents episodes from Boltzmann's life--beginning at the end, with "Boltzmann Kills Himself" and "Boltzmann Is Buried (Not Once, But Twice)." Johnson explains the second law in simple terms, introduces key concepts through thought experiments, and explores Boltzmann's work. He argues that Boltzmann, diagnosed by his contemporaries as neurasthenic, suffered from an anxiety disorder. He was, says Johnson, a man of reason who suffered from irrational concerns about his work, worrying especially about opposition from the scientific establishment of the day. Johnson's clear and concise explanations will acquaint the nonspecialist reader with such seemingly esoteric concepts as microstates, macrostates, fluctuations, the distribution of energy, log functions, and equilibrium. He describes Boltzmann's relationships with other scientists, including Max Planck and Henri Poincaré, and, finally, imagines "an alternative ending," in which Boltzmann lived on and died of natural causes.

Scientist. Innovator. Rebel. For decades, Freeman Dyson has been regarded as one of the world's most important thinkers.The Atlanticwrote, "In the range of his genius, Freeman Dyson is heir to Einstein - a visionary who has reshaped thinking in fields from math to astrophysics to medicine, and who has conceived nuclear-propelled spaceships designed to transport human colonists to distance planets." Salon.com says that, "what sets Dyson apart among an elite group of scientists is the conscience and compassion he brings to his work." Now, in this first complete biography of Dyson, author Phillip F. Schewe examines the life of a man whose accomplishments have shaped our world in many ways. From quantum physics to national defense, from space to biotechnology, Dyson's work has cemented his position as a man whose influence goes far beyond the field of theoretical physics. It even won him the million dollar Templeton prize for his writing about science and religion. Recently, Dyson has made headlines for his controversial views on global warming, and he continues to make waves in the science community to this day. A colleague of Albert Einstein at Princeton and friends with leading thinkers including Robert Oppenheimer, George F. Kennan, and Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson is a larger-than-life figure. Many of his colleagues, including Nobelists Steven Weinberg and Frank Wilczek, as well as his wives and his children, Esther and George Dyson, have been interviewed for this book.Maverick Genius,Schewe's definitive biography, paints a compelling and vibrant portrait of a man who has been both praised for his genius and criticized for his unorthodox views.

Albert Einstein is an icon of the twentieth century. Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, he is most famous for his theory of relativity. He also made enormous contributions to quantum mechanics and cosmology, and for his work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. A self-pronounced pacifist, humanist, and, late in his life, democratic socialist, Einstein was also deeply concerned with the social impact of his discoveries.   Much of Einstein's life is shrouded in legend. From popular images and advertisements to various works of theater and fiction, he has come to signify so many things. In Einstein: A Biography, Jürgen Neffe presents a clear and probing portrait of the man behind the myth. Unearthing new documents, including a series of previously unknown letters from Einstein to his sons, which shed new light on his role as a father, Neffe paints a rich portrait of the tumultuous years in which Einstein lived and worked. And with a background in the sciences, he describes and contextualizes Einstein's enormous contributions to our scientific legacy.   Einstein, a breakout bestseller in Germany, is sure to be a classic biography of the man and proverbial genius who has been called "the brain of the [twentieth] century."

Berlin was the mecca of physics in the beginning of the 20th century. In April 1914, following an invitation initiated by Max Planck, Walther Nernst, Fritz Haber and the crème de la crème of Berlin's scientists, the 35-year-old Einstein accepted a position at the prestigious Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Einstein wanted to take advantage of the academic freedom and the exchange of ideas in Berlin. His marriage was falling apart, and he had recently fallen in love with his cousin, Elsa Lowenthal who lived in Berlin. He looked forward to both factors of his new life there. Four months later, Germany mobilized its army and the roaring voices of nationalism filled all the science centers. The outbreak of World War I suddenly changed the activities, minds and relationships of German scientists and of Einstein's relationships to his colleagues, many of whom joined the war frenzy with violent nationalism. Some changed the focus of their work and created the first weapons of mass destruction. As the war began Einstein said he felt, "alone, like a drop of oil on water, isolated by attitude and cast of mind." However, he remained in the city and at his position. Translated by Michal Schwartz

The definitive biography of the brilliant, charismatic, and very human physicist and innovator Enrico Fermi In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of classical physics and quantum mechanics, equally at ease with theory and experiment, Fermi truly was the last man who knew everything -- at least about physics. But he was also a complex figure who was a part of both the Italian Fascist Party and the Manhattan Project, and a less-than-ideal father and husband who nevertheless remained one of history's greatest mentors. Based on new archival material and exclusive interviews, The Last Man Who Knew Everything lays bare the enigmatic life of a colossus of twentieth century physics.

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called the Pope by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics. Fleeing Fascism and anti-Semitism, Fermi became a leading figure in America's most secret project: building the atomic bomb. The last physicist who mastered all branches of the discipline, Fermi was a rare mixture of theorist and experimentalist. His rich legacy encompasses key advances in fields as diverse as comic rays, nuclear technology, and early computers. In their revealing book, The Pope of Physics, Gino Segré and Bettina Hoerlin bring this scientific visionary to life. An examination of the human dramas that touched Fermi's life as well as a thrilling history of scientific innovation in the twentieth century, this is the comprehensive biography that Fermi deserves.

Perhaps the greatest physicist of the second half of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman changed the way we think about quantum mechanics, the most perplexing of all physical theories. Here Lawrence M. Krauss, himself a theoretical physicist and best-selling author, offers a unique scientific biography: a rollicking narrative coupled with clear and novel expositions of science at the limits. An immensely colorful persona in and out of the office, Feynman revolutionized our understanding of nature amid a turbulent life. Krauss presents that life--from the death of Feynman's childhood sweetheart during the Manhattan Project to his reluctant rise as a scientific icon--as seen through the science, providing a new understanding of the legacy of a man who has fascinated millions. An accessible reflection on the issues that drive physics today, Quantum Man captures the story of a man who was willing to break all the rules to tame a theory that broke all the rules.

This book takes the reader on a journey through the life of Richard Feynman and describes, in non-technical terms, his revolutionary contributions to modern physics. Feynman was an unconventional thinker who always tried to get to the bottom of things. In doing so, he developed an intuitive view that made him one of the greatest teachers of physics. The author captures this development and explains it in the context of the zeitgeist of modern physics: What revolutionary ideas did Feynman have, what contribution did he make to the development of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, how can Feynman's methods be understood? Be enchanted by this book and understand the physics of the genius whose 100th birthday was celebrated in 2018.   

Kitty Ferguson, the award-winning and international bestselling author of Stephen Hawking's biography, presents an even deeper portrait of the legendary physicist's life and scientific theories. Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind looks at one of the most remarkable figures of our age: the bestselling author ofA Brief History of Time, celebrated theoretical physicist, and an inspiration to millions around the world. Ferguson offers fresh insights into the way Hawking thinks and works, his ever-more-imaginative adventures in science at the "flaming ramparts of the world," the discovery of gravity waves, the blockbuster proposal for "Starshot" to explore the cosmos, and his powerful use of his celebrity on behalf of human rights and survival on earth and beyond. With rare access to Hawking, including childhood photos and in-depth research, Ferguson creates a rich and comprehensive picture of his life: his childhood; the heartbreaking ALS diagnosis when he was a first-year graduate student; his long personal battle for survival in pursuit of a scientific understanding of the universe; and his rise to international fame. She also uses her gift for translating the language of theoretical physics into the language of the rest of us to make Hawking's scientific work accessible.

Stephen Hawking was widely recognized as the world's best physicist and even the most brilliant man alive-but what if his true talent was self-promotion? When Stephen Hawking died, he was widely recognized as the world's best physicist, and even its smartest person.  He was neither.  In Hawking Hawking, science journalist Charles Seife explores how Stephen Hawking came to be thought of as humanity's greatest genius. Hawking spent his career grappling with deep questions in physics, but his renown didn't rest on his science. He was a master of self-promotion, hosting parties for time travelers, declaring victory over problems he had not solved, and wooing billionaires. In a wheelchair and physically dependent on a cadre of devotees, Hawking still managed to captivate the people around him--and use them for his own purposes.  A brilliant exposé and powerful biography, Hawking Hawking uncovers the authentic Hawking buried underneath the fake. It is the story of a man whose brilliance in physics was matched by his genius for building his own myth. 

Werner Heisenberg's genius and his place at the forefront of modern physics are unquestioned. His decision to remain in Germany throughout the Third Reich and his role in Hitler's atomic bomb project are still topics of heated debate. UNCERTAINTY is David Cassidy's compelling portrait of this brilliant, ambitious, and controversial scientist. It is the definitive Heisenberg biography, as well as a striking evocation of the development of quantum physics, the rise of Nazism, and the dawn of the atomic age.

By the end of World War I, Albert Einstein had become the face of the new science of theoretical physics and had made some powerful enemies. One of those enemies, Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard, spent a career trying to discredit him. Their story of conflict, pitting Germany's most widely celebrated Jew against the Nazi scientist who was to become Hitler's chief advisor on physics, had an impact far exceeding what the scientific community felt at the time. Indeed, their mutual antagonism affected the direction of science long after 1933, when Einstein took flight to America and changed the history of two nations. The Man Who Stalked Einstein details the tense relationship between Einstein and Lenard, their ideas and actions, during the eventful period between World War I and World War II.

Asked to name a great physicist, most people would mention Newton or Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. But ask a physicist and there's no doubt that James Clerk Maxwell will be near the top of the list. � Maxwell, an unassuming Victorian Scotsman, explained how we perceive colour. He uncovered the way gases behave. And, most significantly, he transformed the way physics was undertaken in his explanation of the interaction of electricity and magnetism, revealing the nature of light and laying the groundwork for everything from Einstein's special relativity to modern electronics.� �Along the way, he set up one of the most enduring challenges in physics, one that has taxed the best minds ever since. 'Maxwell's demon' is a tiny but thoroughly disruptive thought experiment that suggests the second law of thermodynamics, the law that governs the flow of time itself, can be broken. This is the story of a groundbreaking scientist, a great contributor to our understanding of the way the world works, and his duplicitous demon.

For some, it was that special connection with a grandparent or a football coach, a boss, or a cleric. For Leonard Mlodinow, as a young physicist struggling to find his place in the world, the relationship that would most profoundly influence his life was with his mentor, the NobelPrize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. Drawing on transcripts from his many meetings with Feynman during their time together at Cal Tech, Mlodinow shares Feynman's provocative answers to such questions as 'What is the nature of creativity?' and 'How does a scientist think?' At once a moving portrait of a friendship and an affecting account of Feynman's final, creative years, FEYNMAN'SRAINBOW celebrates the inspiring legacy of one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Robert J. Oppenheimer is among the most contentious and important figures of the twentieth century. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb - a breakthrough which was to have eternal ramifications for mankind, and made Oppenheimer the 'father of the Bomb'

A lively, fascinating biography of the father of quantum mechanics by the bestselling author of the science classic, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat Erwin Schrödinger, best known for his famous "Schrödinger's Cat" paradox, is one of the most famous physicists of the early twentieth century and a member of a new generation of quantum physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Yet Schrödinger's scientific discoveries only scratch the surface of what makes him so fascinating. More rumpled than Einstein, a devotee of eastern religion and philosophy, and infamous for his alternative lifestyle, his major contribution to physics--and the work for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933--was to some extent a disappointment to him. Regardless, Schrödinger's masterpiece became an important part of the new physics of his time. This book tells the story of Schrödinger's surprisingly colorful life during one of the most fertile and creative moments in the history of science. The first accessible, in-depth biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger Takes you into the heart of the quantum revolution and explains the captivating world of quantum mechanics, which underpins all of modern science Written by bestselling author John Gribbin, one of today's greatest popular science writers whose other books include In Search of Schrödinger's Cat , In Search of the Multiverse, and Alone in the Universe

Erwin Schrödinger was a brilliant and charming Austrian, a great scientist, and a man with a passionate interest in people and ideas. In this, the first comprehensive biography of Schrödinger, Walter Moore draws upon recollections of Schrödinger's friends, family and colleagues, and on contemporary records, letters and diaries. Schrödinger's life is portrayed against the backdrop of Europe at a time of change and unrest. His best-known scientific work was the discovery of wave mechanics, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1933. However, Erwin was also an enthusiastic explorer of the ideas of Hindu mysticism, and in the mountains of his beloved Tyrol he sought a philosophic unity of Mind and Nature. Although not Jewish, he left his prestigious position at Berlin University as soon as the Nazis seized power. After a short time in Oxford he moved to Graz, but barely escaped from Austria after the Anschluss. He then helped Eamon de Valera establish an Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. It was here that he spent the happiest years of his life, and also where he wrote his most famous and influential book What is Life?, which attracted some of the brightest minds of his generation into molecular biology. Schrodinger enjoyed a close friendship with Einstein, and the two maintained a prolific correspondence all their lives. Schrödinger led a very intense life, both in his scientific research and in his personal life. Walter Moore has written a highly readable biography of this fascinating and complex man which will appeal not only to scientists but to anyone interested in the history of our times, and in the life and thought of one of the great men of twentieth-century science.

Niel Bohr's life spans times of revolutionary change, in science and in its impact on society. Along with Einstein, Bohr can be considered as this century's major driving force behind the new mathematical and philosophical descriptions of the atom, the nucleus, and all that resulted from them. Now available in paperback for the first time, Abraham Pais, the acclaimed biographer of Einstein, traces Bohr's progress from his well-to-do origins in late nineteenth-century Denmark to his central position in the world political scene, particularly because of the development of nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Pais describes the state of physics before Bohr and considers his legacy, both theoretical and practical. But more than this, he captures the essence of Bohr, the intensely private family man who, despite appalling personal tragedy, became one of the best-loved cultural figures of recent times.

Two ambitious men. One historic mission. With a blinding flash in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1945, the world was changed forever. The bomb that ushered in the atomic age was the product of one of history's most improbable partnerships. The General and the Genius reveals how two extraordinary men pulled off the greatest scientific feat of the twentieth century. Leslie Richard Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers, who had made his name by building the Pentagon in record time and under budget, was made overlord of the impossibly vast scientific enterprise known as the Manhattan Project. His mission: to beat the Nazis to the atomic bomb. So he turned to the nation's preeminent theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer--the chain-smoking, martini-quaffing son of wealthy Jewish immigrants, whose background was riddled with communist associations--Groves's opposite in nearly every respect. In their three-year collaboration, the iron-willed general and the visionary scientist led a brilliant team in a secret mountaintop lab and built the fearsome weapons that ended the war but introduced the human race to unimaginable new terrors. And at the heart of this most momentous work of World War II is the story of two extraordinary men--the general and the genius.

The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo's Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own "Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name," writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science--Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre's untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life. As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy--from France's Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway's Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie's elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève's later recollection, "discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world." With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.