A tale of two continents
Subtitle: a physicist's life in a turbulent world
By: Abraham Pais.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 511
Subjects: Pais, Abraham, 1918-; Physics -- History.; Physicists -- United States -- Biography.
Description: The author of an immensely popular biography of Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord, Pais writes engagingly for a general audience. His "tale" describes his period of hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland (although he ended the war in a Gestapo prison) and his life in America, particularly at the newly organized Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then directed by the brilliant and controversial physicist Robert Oppenheimer.

Pais tells fascinating stories about Oppenheimer, Einstein, Bohr, Sakharov, Dirac, Heisenberg, and von Neumann, as well as about nonscientists like Chaim Weizmann, George Kennan, Erwin Panofsky, and Pablo Casals. His enthusiasm about science and life in general pervades a book that is partly a memoir, partly a travel commentary, and partly a history of science.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.