Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics

My first impression is that this is one of my favorite books ever. The physicist-author's writing is very lucid and easy to follow, despite the heavy subject matter of quantum mechanics and nuclear physics. It is, after all, mostly just the story of the people responsible for the groundbreaking discoveries, experiments, and theories leading to the so-called "big" physics era of today. Segré, I think, achieves the right amount of scientific and mathematical rigor in his explanations (there are no equations). It's just a fact that quantum mechanics and nuclear physics are hard to understand, but Segré makes it easy to appreciate the science and people behind the developments of those disciplines. I thought there were a few places that show more could have used maybe an additional paragraph of explanation (like when Segré first mentioned that it was proven that the nitrogen nucleus has an even amount of particles), but maybe that wouldn't have been possible. show less

Faust in Copenhagen is a pleasant and easy read about the lives and personalities of the principal contributors to quantum theory. The author, the son of a Noble Laureate physicist and a first rate scientist in his own right, probably got a lot of insight into the personal interplay among the dramatis personae from talking to his father. In any event, this is a chatty book with only a minimum of physics.

On one hand, I had expected to be taught more about quantum theory, but on the other hand, what was taught was surprisingly clear. For example, I had often read that quantum theory abrogated the principle of direct causality, being able to predict future events only as probabilities. One often assumes, then, that the cause is show more unpredictable, mysterious, and random. Segre gives a more nuanced explanation that he attributes to Werner Heisenberg. Because of the uncertainty principle, we can never precisely measure both position and momentum of a particle; hence, we can't predict the future because we can never know where we are starting from! The problem arises from never having an exact premise from which to draw a conclusion.

Segre's explanation of Bohr's principle of complementarity is also pretty lucid. An electron or a photon is neither a particle nor a wave. However, the method we use to measure or observe it determines which characteristic it will exhibit. Our method of observation determines whether we will see it as a particle or a wave.

A note to any pellucid physicists reading my review, please correct me if I have misstated either the physics or Segre's explanations.

Niels Bohr comes through as a kind of saintly father figure. Everything else I have read about him confirms that impression. Segre underestimates Bohr's ability as a ping pong player, but gives him due credit as a skier, incredibly clear thinker, and leader.

Wolfgang Pauli's nickname, the Scourge of God, is well earned. Paul Dirac is amazingly literal, wondering how Heisenberg knew some women they might meet would be "nice" girls. Heisenberg is complex, though not as analytically brilliant as Dirac or Einstein. One wishes Segre had more to say about Enrico Fermi, who joined the group late in the book.

Although well written, the book is something like a fan magazine article about the great men. It succeeds very well at what it sets out to accomplish, but its goals are modest.

(JAB) show less

This amazing book follows the history of the development of Quantum Mechanics. Every year Niels Bohr would invite physicists and their students to attend a conference at his institute in Copenhagen. Older guys like Bohr, Einstein, Planck, etc., and youngsters like Heisenberg, Pauli, Ehrenfest, Born, etc., would all attend and discuss ideas. Imagine being there and just listening to Bohr and Einstein argue for a couple of days, each trying to convince the other (and failing). Basically, every 20th century physicist you ever heard of was working together with these guys at some time. At one point they're all looking at atoms like a mini solar system, using something called Matrix Algebra to try to figure out how it's all working, and show more Schrodinger, out of the blue, releases a paper describing how it all works with waves. I can't say I can explain quantum mechanics to anyone, but I did learn a lot more about it from this excellent book. The author, Gino Segre, is a physics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and his uncle Antonio Segre won the Nobel prize for physics. show less

An enjoyable recounting of the lives and big events involving the major physicists of the last century. It gave me a much better appreciation of figures like Neils Bohr, Paul Dirac, Wernher Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Lise Meitner, and others. I came away with a better understanding of them as people (esp. Bohr) and of their contributions to the field (again, esp. Bohr). Pretty good stuff.

The Faust component of the book was minuscule and the struggle for the soul of physics (whatever that might be) was to my eyes illusory. The book was, for the most part, a series of anecdotes- most of which have been more coherently told elsewhere. I was disappointed.

Sette geni della fisica, sei uomini e una donna, nel 1932, si riuniscono all'Istituto di fisica teorica di Copenaghen. Sono i maggiori scienziati del Novecento, protagonisti delle principali scoperte della fisica, ma quell'anno saranno costretti a confrontarsi con la macchina bellica di Hitler e a subire condizionamenti politici e militari. Questo volume ricostruisce quel momento cruciale della ricerca scientifica e della storia mondiale.

היזנברג מבקר את נילס בוהר בקופנהאגן, מי יודע על מה הם דברו.? על הפצצה? מותחן פוליטי ומדעי אמיתי