With seven to eight excellent biographies of J. Robert Oppenheimer already written, one might grimace when he comes across another one. However, this one is written by Abraham Pais, one of the premier scientific biographers of the century. Pais was Einstein's assistant in Princeton and wrote what many consider to be the great man's preeminent biography, 'Subtle is the Lord'. He also personally knew many of the other greats of the century like Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, and Dirac. Pais himself was a distinguished physicist and spent a few years in Princeton when Oppenheimer was director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Any biography of this other great man written by such a worthy biographer is most welcome. The book releases on March31, and I eagerly await it.
posted by Wavefunction at 11:51 AM
1 Comments:
I have read one of Pais' book. The one on Bohr. I remember being impressed by his exhaustive research. The book was a tome. But, after plodding through it halfway, I couldn't sustain my interest. I seem to prefer more anecdotal bios. Like the ones on Paul Erdos or Feynman.
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