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A review by ivetipie
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar
5.0
Re-read. Loved it then and love it now. I guess I read this for the first time when I was about 16 and a veritable Physics Nut. And I'm pretty sure it was partly reading about these crazed scientists that made me want to study physics and chemistry at university. And now it almost makes me want to go through that whole ordeal again, if I could have Bohr as my mentor hehe
Everything about this book is perfect to me. The physics melting into philosophy, the giants of physics made human with their stubborn ideas and rivalries, the history lesson on what it means to be a scientist during two world wars, the presentation of quantum theory which is so concisely done that it almost makes me think I could come up with it myself...
I am in love with this romantic era where it seems like all the big names of physics were alive at the same time and obsessed with the nature of the universe together. Where all they could talk about, even in their breaks, even at 3 in the morning, was the latest scientific discoveries and their interpretations. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at the first Solvay Conferences and experience the intellectual climate at the turn of the century.
P.S. I'll leave you with something Pauli said when he was asked why he was looking preoccupied walking down the street - "How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?"
Ahhh I love it, it makes my heart melt. RIP all these wholesome men (and the women who also could have been there but were all busy being Einstein & co's house slaves) (All except Curie. You rock Curie.)
Everything about this book is perfect to me. The physics melting into philosophy, the giants of physics made human with their stubborn ideas and rivalries, the history lesson on what it means to be a scientist during two world wars, the presentation of quantum theory which is so concisely done that it almost makes me think I could come up with it myself...
I am in love with this romantic era where it seems like all the big names of physics were alive at the same time and obsessed with the nature of the universe together. Where all they could talk about, even in their breaks, even at 3 in the morning, was the latest scientific discoveries and their interpretations. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at the first Solvay Conferences and experience the intellectual climate at the turn of the century.
P.S. I'll leave you with something Pauli said when he was asked why he was looking preoccupied walking down the street - "How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?"
Ahhh I love it, it makes my heart melt. RIP all these wholesome men (and the women who also could have been there but were all busy being Einstein & co's house slaves) (All except Curie. You rock Curie.)