Portraits of Discovery
John Wiley & Sons Inc (Verlag)
978-0-471-19138-4 (ISBN)
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All along, Greenstein offers artfully drawn portraits of the colorful personalities of his subjects: the genius and "buffoonery" of Richard Feynman, who developed a new, more elegant way to solve physics problems; the wit and imagination of the hard-drinking, Nobel Prize-winning George Gamow, known for his magic tricks as well as for profound insights into radioactivity and the Big Bang; and the exuberance of Ludwig Boltzmann, who developed a new vision of the atom despite a mental illness that eventually led to his tragic suicide. Powerful social and political forces also enter the picture: we learn how women astronomers like Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Annie Jump Cannon, despite their enormous contributions, were deprived of fair pay, recognition, and even the use of telescopes! We see George Gamow and his wife attempting to paddle their way across 170 miles of open sea in a small canoe to escape political oppression in Russia. Conversely, we hear the story of Luis Alvarez's Cold War-inspired testimony against J. Robert Oppenheimer-which earned Alvarez the everlasting enmity of many of his fellow scientists.
In the two very different worlds of Martin Perl and Homi Bhabha-one in modern industrial America, the other in Third World India-we follow the problematic development and achievements of large-scale Big Science. In Portraits of Discovery, the author has created a rarity in science writing-a book that does justice to both the actual work of scientific research and to the idiosyncratic, flesh-and-blood lives of the scientists themselves. Reading it will deepen and enrich your appreciation of both science and its practitioners. A gallery of richly painted portraits of scientific genius:"the encounters of individual, contingent lives with the hard rock of external truth". Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Annie Jump Cannon. The chemical composition of the stars Ludwig Boltzmann Atoms, entropy, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. George Gamow Radioactivity Homi Bhabha The development of science in India. Luis Alvarez The extinction of the dinosaurs. Richard Feynman Feynman diagrams Martin Perl The tau particle and Big Science Margaret Geller and John Huchra Mapping the cosmos
GEORGE GREENSTEIN is Professor of Astronomy at Amherst College and the author of The Symbiotic Universe and Frozen Star. He is the recipient of both the Phi Beta Kappa Award for science writing and the American Institute of Physics/U.S. Steel Award. His essays appear regularly in the American Scholar magazine.
The Ladies of Observatory Hill: Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. The Bulldog: Ludwig Boltzmann and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Magician: George Gamow. A Gentleman of the Old School: Homi Bhabha and the Development of Science in India. Luie's Gadgets: Luis Alvarez and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs. All Genius and All Buffoon: Richard Feynman. Big Science: Martin Perl and the World of High Energy Physics. Our Address in the Universe: Margaret Geller and John Huchra. Sources. Acknowledgments. Index.
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 27.10.1997 |
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Zusatzinfo | portraits |
Verlagsort | New York |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 167 x 236 mm |
Gewicht | 510 g |
Einbandart | gebunden |
Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Naturwissenschaft | |
Naturwissenschaften | |
ISBN-10 | 0-471-19138-8 / 0471191388 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-471-19138-4 / 9780471191384 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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