The genius of science. A portrait gallery of twentieth-century physicists (Q2782604)

The famous physicist A. Pais presents a so-called portrait-gallery containing 16 portraits. However, these portraits are not merely short biographies, they are in most cases also very personal. The author has had a personal relationship to all the portrayed physicists, sometimes this relationship was very close, sometimes it was not that narrow.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEIt was not the aim of the author to mention all the activities of the portrayed physicists but he focuses on several scientific subjects which he thouqht to be most relevant.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINESome of the portraits are very short some of them quite long, the shortest is only 4 pages, the largest 54 pages. Every article is accompanied by one or more photographs and notes; the author had not only consulted printed material but had also quoted interviews, archive material, personal, not yet published letters and so on.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEAs an example I want to refer to the portrait of John von Neumann (p. 184-209). You hear about the youth in Hungary and even that he had become bar mitzvah at the age of 13. After his studies in Budapest and Göttingen von Neumann became Privatdozent in Berlin. He contributed to various areas of physics as long as he was in Europe. In 1930 he got a first appointment in Princeton, he was very much engaged in the Second World War. ``The personal recollections'' are combined with ``The Johnniac''. During ``The final years'' von Neumann's attitude in the Oppenheimer affair is discussed quite frankly.