The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery
Physics might seem part of an alien culture to most people, but it has touched all our lives, and its byproducts, in the form of nuclear fission, are going to remain with us for many generations to come. It could be argued that the 20th century was the century of theoretical physics.The Genius of Scienceis, as its subtitle claims, a portrait gallery of 16 of the most interesting and eminent of the international physicists who helped change our view of the world--from Niels Bohr to Eugene Wigner.  But the list of characters is much, much larger and interweaves most of the international network of physicists and other prominent scientists of the last century. Author Abraham Pais, an eminent American theoretical physicist and professor at Rockefeller University, has written acclaimed biographies of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, two of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. Pais was acquainted with many of the people he writes about, and he often appears in the book as a shadowy figure in the background. Anyone can dip intoThe Genius of Scienceanywhere in its pages and be immediately grabbed by both the extraordinary and the ordinary aspects of the lives of these scientists. The author provides plenty of anecdotes, from those about Bohr's pipe-smoking to Robert Oppenheimer's reaction to the first successful atomic bomb test: "... some lines of theBhagavad Gitawent through his mind: I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."Pais wants to bring life back to these people, but not in any salacious way; he admits to having "never been interested in entering others' bedrooms." If you want psycho-biography or scandal, you will not find it here. But the general reader will get a sense of the trials, tribulations, and excitement of the scientific life. There are plenty of references for those who want to follow up the details, and there's a useful index of characters mentioned in the text.--Douglas Palmer, Amazon.co.uk