Starred review from April 9, 2007
Segrè (A Matter of Degrees
) once again applies a human scale to important physics topics in a way that's as informative and accessible as it is appealing. Beginning in 1929, Niels Bohr hosted an annual gathering in Copenhagen for his fellow physicists, where they joked and argued about the new theory of quantum mechanics. Tradition demanded that the younger physicists entertain with a skit, and in 1932, the centenary of Goethe's death, the entertainment was Max Delbrück's parody of Faust
, with the proponents of classical physics and the new quantum mechanics fighting for primacy. The discovery of the neutron and the positron had disturbed classical atomic theory, while quantum mechanics raised troubling issues, such as how one could find the true position of an electron and how the photon could be both a particle and a wave. Segrè brings the scientists and their ideas to vivid life, from convivial Bohr and iconoclastic Wolfgang Pauli (nicknamed "Scourge of God"), to emotionally guarded Werner Heisenberg, gracious Lise Meitner, reclusive Paul Dirac and others, as well as the consequences of their discoveries. For after 1932 came Hitler and WWII, and a new physics that could never be as intimate, or as innocent, as it had once been.
June 1, 2007
Segrè (physics & astronomy, Univ. of Pennsylvania; "A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet and Universe") describes some of the most important developments in physics during the 1920s and 1930s as quantum mechanics was being rapidly developed and some major advances in nuclear physics were leading to the discovery of nuclear fission. The narrative centers on a meeting in 1932 Copenhagen among some 40 of the world's top physicists, including hosts Werner Heisenberg, Lise Meitner, Paul Dirac, and Neils Bohr. That meeting ended with a humorous skit on Goethe's "Faust"parodying the personalities and accomplishments of the greatest current physicists, some of whom were in attendance at the skit. Segrè describes the quantum mechanical advances and controversies in a very readable fashion for a general audience and manages to avoid the use of equations. Also, he provides intriguing thumbnail sketches of the heterogeneous personalities involved. Segrè himself belongs to a younger generation of physicists, but he has personal and familial ties to the "great ones" of the pre-World War II era. For most popular science collections in academic and public libraries.Jack W. Weigel, Ann Arbor, MI
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