Quantum Profiles by Jeremy Bernstein

Quantum Profiles by Jeremy Bernstein

For the prominent science writer Jeremy Bernstein, the profile is the most congenial way of communicating science. Here, in what he labels a "series of conversations carried on in the reader's behalf and my own," he evokes the tremendous intellectual excitement of the world of modern physics, especially the quantum revolution. Drawing on his well-known talent for explaining the most complex scientific ideas for the layperson, Bernstein gives us a lively sense of what the issues of quantum mechanics are and of various ways in which individual physicists approached them. The author begins this series of interconnected profiles by describing the life and work of John Stewart Bell, the brilliant physicist employed at the gigantic elementary particle laboratory near Geneva (CERN), whose "Bell's Inequality" inspired a generation of researchers to confront, by experiment, just how peculiar and counterintuitional quantum mechanics really is. Bernstein then discusses the career of the prodigiously active and creative John Archibald Wheeler, who worked in the beginning stages of almost every branch of contemporary physics and invented the terms "black hole," "ergo-sphere," "geon," "Planck length," and "stellarator." The book closes with a moving commentary on the correspondence, of fifty-two years duration, between Einstein and the gentle, talented, but little-known Swiss engineer Michele Angelo Besso. "Of all the Einstein letters I have read these are surely the most striking, on a purely human level," writes Bernstein of the Einstein-Besso correspondence. "Einstein was not given to close friendships--`the merely personal,' as he once put it--but these letters are filled with `the merely personal,' even though the deep issues of physics and its philosophy are never very far away."

"Fascinating to read.. provides a valuable addition to an important debate about our understanding of the universe at its most fundamental level." * The New York Review of Books *
"A collection of three warm, colorful and insightful profiles of physicists who have contributed to the study of quantum mechanics." * The Washington Times *

About the Authors

Jeremy Bernstein
Jeremy Bernstein has had a dual career in physics and writing. He was on the staff of the New Yorker from 1963 to 1993 and was a Professor of Physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology from 1968 until his retirement in 1993, when he became Professor emeritus. He has won several awards for his writing about science and mountain travel. He has also published widely in both technical and non-technical journals. Some of his recent books are: An Introduction to Cosmology, Albert Einstein and the Frontiers of Physics, A Theory for Everything, In the Himalayas, and Dawning of the Raj. He has held visiting appointments at The Rockefeller University, The University of Islamabad, The Ecole Polytechnique, CERN laboratory, Princeton University, and Oxford. This photograph of Jeremy was taken on a bicycle trip in northern California. The thumb, which is on the grounds of the Clos Pegase art gallery and winery in Calistoga, was the work of the French artist Cesar Baldachini. Bernstein has bicycled in many countries including Bali and Crete. He makes his home in New York City and Aspen, Colorado.

Paul M. Fishbane
Paul Fishbane has been teaching undergraduate courses at the University of Virginia, where he is Professor of Physics, for some 25 years. He received his doctoral degree from Princeton University in 1967 and has published some 100 papers in his field, theoretical high energy physics. He is co-author of Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Stephen Gasiorowicz and Stephen Thornton. Paul has held visiting appointments at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, CERN laboratory in Switzerland, Amsterdam's NIKHEF laboratory, France's Institut de Physique Nucleaire, the University of Paris-Sud, and the Ecole Polytechnique. He has been active for many years at the Aspen Center for Physics, where current issues in physics are discussed with an international group of participants. His other interests include biking, music, and the physics of the kitchen. All of the rest of his time is spent trying to keep up with his family, especially his youngest son Nicholas.

Stephen Gasiorowicz
Stephen Gasiorowicz was born in Poland and received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1952. After spending 8 years at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where his field of research is theoretical high energy physics. As a visiting professor, he has traveled to the Niels Bohr Institute, NORDITA in Copenhagen, the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, DESY in Hamburg, Fermilab in Batavia, and the Universities of Marseille and Tokyo. He has been a frequent visitor and an officer of the Aspen Center for Physics. Steve is co-author of Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Paul Fishbane and Stephen Thornton and has written books on elementary particle physics and quantum physics. A relatively new occupation is that of grandfather, which still leaves some time for reading (history), biking, canoeing, and skiing.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691087252
ISBN 10	0691087253
Title	Quantum Profiles
Author	Jeremy Bernstein
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Year published	1990-11-21
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable