Description
New York: Basic Books, 2009. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [10], 539 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Front free endpaper and half-title page creased. Graham Paul Farmelo (born 18 May 1953) is a biographer and science writer, a Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, U.K., and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at Northeastern University, Boston, U.S.A. He is best known for his work on science communication and as the author of The Strangest Man, a prize-winning biography of the theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Farmelo is author of 'The Universe Speaks in Numbers', published in May 2019. It explores the relationship between mathematics and the search for the laws of physics, and highlights the contributions of several theoretical physicists, natural philosophers and mathematicians, notably Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein and Paul Dirac, before focussing on key developments on the mathematics-physics interface from the 1970s. Among the physicists and mathematicians whose work Farmelo discusses are Nima Arkani-Hamed, Michael Atiyah, Simon Donaldson, Michael Green, John Henry Schwarz, Nathan Seiberg, Gabriele Veneziano, Edward Witten and Chen-Ning Yang. Farmelo's Dirac biography ?The Strangest Man? won the 2009 Costa Prize for Biography and the 2009 'Los Angeles Times Science and Technology Book Prize'. The book was chosen by Physics World as the physics book of the year in 2009, and was selected as one of Nature?s books of the year. Much of the book was written while Farmelo was a Director?s visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Paul Dirac (1902-1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. One of Albert Einstein's most admired colleagues, Dirac won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933 for his work on atomic theory, the youngest theoretician ever to win the prize in physics. Derived from a Kirkus review: Along with Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli and Schrödinger, Paul Dirac was a giant of 20th-century physics, and this rich, satisfying biography does him justice. During the 1920s, using dazzling mathematical skills, Dirac combined Einstein?s theory of relativity with Schrödinger and Heisenberg?s theories of quantum physics. This inspired work, which predicted the existence of antimatter, remains essential to physicists probing the frontiers of knowledge. Dirac?s brilliance and oddity were apparent from adolescence. He studied engineering at a local college. Despite little mechanical ability, he quickly moved to the head of his class. He showed no interest in games, culture or socializing, made few friends and rarely spoke in class. When not in school, he preferred to study in the library. Fortunately, several teachers recognized his talents and used their influence to obtain a scholarship from Cambridge. Entering in 1923, he quickly displayed mathematical insights that laid the foundation of quantum mechanics. In 1933, he shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Schrödinger. After winning the award, Dirac continued to produce original ideas and contributed to atomic research during World War II. Farmelo works successfully to explain Dirac?s accomplishments, but readers will love the nuanced portrayal of an introverted eccentric who held his own in a small clique of revolutionary scientific geniuses.
