An exuberant dual biography that integrates developments in quantum physics, cosmology and genetics since the 1920s with the...
Segrè (Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics, 2007, etc.) explores the extraordinary lives and scientific accomplishments of two far-from-ordinary men, Max Delbrück and George Gamow.
The author explains why he calls them “ordinary” geniuses, despite the fact that they “led two of the most important science revolutions of the twentieth century.” Both were big-picture scientists, quantum physicists unwilling to rest on their laurels and unafraid of mistakes. Just as Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbit of planets awaited Newton's gravitational theory for its realization and Bohr's model of the atom, despite being in error, was the inspiration for quantum mechanics, so it was Delbrück's research into the origins of life that inspired the work of Crick and Watson and Gamow's effort to explain the origin of atoms that earned him the title of the father of modern cosmology. In fact, Segrè’s title appears to be ironic. He explains that their genius was ordinary only in comparison with the towering greats such as Einstein and Heisenberg. The author writes extensively about how Bohr supported and encouraged their work and organized fellowships for them so that they could participate in the stimulating atmosphere of his Copenhagen Institute in the formative stage of their careers, and how they sought to replicate that environment as teachers in America, where they immigrated on the eve of World War II. In the author's opinion, their “ordinary genius” was the result of qualities that we all can share—judgment, character, perseverance and willingness to think outside of the box—although he deplores the short-term practical goals that have come to dominate the scientific establishment in recent years.
An exuberant dual biography that integrates developments in quantum physics, cosmology and genetics since the 1920s with the lives of these two scientists.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02276-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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