Faust in Copenhagen

Faust in Copenhagen
Author: Gino Segrè
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2007
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780670038589

Documents the 1932 gathering of some forty of the world's top names in physics, placing the meeting against a backdrop of key scientific developments while citing the contributions of specific figures and offering insight into how their unsuspecting collaborations gave way to subsequent historical events.

Faust in Copenhagen

Faust in Copenhagen
Author: Gino Segre
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2007-06-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1101202386

A physicist himself, Gino Segrè writes about what scientists do and why they do it with intimacy, clarity, and passion. In Faust in Copenhagen, he evokes the fleeting, magical moment when physics' and the world was about to lose its innocence forever. Known by physicists as the miracle year, 1932 saw the discovery of the neutron and antimatter, as well as the first artificially induced nuclear transmutations. However, while scientists celebrated these momentous discoveries, which presaged the nuclear era and the emergence of big science, during a meeting at Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute, Europe was moving inexorably toward totalitarianism and war.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen
Author: Michael Frayn
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2000
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573627521

An explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.

Science on Stage

Science on Stage
Author: Kirsten Shepherd-Barr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0691188238

Science on Stage is the first full-length study of the phenomenon of "science plays"--theatrical events that weave scientific content into the plot lines of the drama. The book investigates the tradition of science on the stage from the Renaissance to the present, focusing in particular on the current wave of science playwriting. Drawing on extensive interviews with playwrights and directors, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr discusses such works as Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. She asks questions such as, What accounts for the surge of interest in putting science on the stage? What areas of science seem most popular with playwrights, and why? How has the tradition evolved throughout the centuries? What currents are defining it now? And what are some of the debates and controversies surrounding the use of science on stage? Organized by scientific themes, the book examines selected contemporary plays that represent a merging of theatrical form and scientific content--plays in which the science is literally enacted through the structure and performance of the play. Beginning with a discussion of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, the book traces the history of how scientific ideas (quantum mechanics and fractals, for example) are dealt with in theatrical presentations. It discusses the relationship of science to society, the role of science in our lives, the complicated ethical considerations of science, and the accuracy of the portrayal of science in the dramatic context. The final chapter looks at some of the most recent and exciting developments in science playwriting that are taking the genre in innovative directions and challenging the audience's expectations of a science play. The book includes a comprehensive annotated list of four centuries of science plays, which will be useful for teachers, students, and general readers alike.

Quantum Demonology

Quantum Demonology
Author: Sheila Eggenberger
Publisher: Nigel's Flight
Total Pages: 604
Release: 2013-12-17
Genre: Demonology
ISBN: 9780991105908

"If Faust were a 21st century metal-minded former punk with too much libido and a major attitude problem, this would be her story."

Ordinary Geniuses

Ordinary Geniuses
Author: Gino Segre
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143121308

A fascinating tribute to the forefathers of two of today’s most exciting scientific fields Thanks to Max Delbruck and George Gamow, today we have mapped the human genome and understand the ramifications of the Big Bang. In his characteristically inviting and elegant style, Gino Segre brings to life the story of these two great scientists and their long friendship and offers an accessible inside look the people behind the scenes of science—the collaboration and competition, the quirks and failures, the role of intuition and luck, and the sense of wonder and curiosity that keeps these extraordinary minds going.

The Pope of Physics

The Pope of Physics
Author: Gino Segrè
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2016-10-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1627790063

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called the Pope by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics. Fleeing Fascism and anti-Semitism, Fermi became a leading figure in America's most secret project: building the atomic bomb. The last physicist who mastered all branches of the discipline, Fermi was a rare mixture of theorist and experimentalist. His rich legacy encompasses key advances in fields as diverse as comic rays, nuclear technology, and early computers. In their revealing book, The Pope of Physics, Gino Segré and Bettina Hoerlin bring this scientific visionary to life. An examination of the human dramas that touched Fermi’s life as well as a thrilling history of scientific innovation in the twentieth century, this is the comprehensive biography that Fermi deserves.

George Placzek: A Nuclear Physicist's Odyssey

George Placzek: A Nuclear Physicist's Odyssey
Author: Ales Gottvald
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2018-05-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9813236930

This book presents the first detailed biography of George Placzek — an outstanding physicist, a participant in the Manhattan Project who stood at the very inception of nuclear physics and the subsequent development of the nuclear bomb in the course of the WWII. In the 1930s, George Placzek was known as an adventurous person with a sharp sense of humor, a tireless generator of novel physics ideas which he generously shared with his colleagues. Born in Brno (now Czech Republic) into a wealthy Jewish family, he lost all his relatives to Holocaust, casting a tragic shadow on his life.Placzek's scientific career began in the late 1920s when the quantum revolution was almost over, but nuclear physics was still at its infancy. He established personal and scientific relations with the creators of quantum mechanics, such as Heisenberg in Leipzig and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In Rome, he worked with Fermi, and in Copenhagen he became a part of Bohr's nuclear physics team which dominated nuclear theory at that time. The scope of Placzek's pilgrimage around world physics centers in the 1930s was unique among his colleagues. In January 1939, George Placzek managed to emigrate from Europe to the US, and became a part of the British Mission within the Manhattan Project. His physical insights were instrumental in advancing from the basic discoveries on nuclear chain reactions to the Trinity experiment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.This book is a unique compilation of a large number of previously unknown and unpublished documents from private and university archives, police reports, etc. Placzek's correspondence with the leadership of the Hebrew University in 1934, the 1937 NKVD interrogation files of Konrad Weisselberg, recollections of Ella Andriesse as well as the Zurich Police report of 1956 detailing the circumstances of Placzek's death in a Zurich hotel are illuminating as they shed light on poorly known pages of his life.

Thirty Years that Shook Physics

Thirty Years that Shook Physics
Author: George Gamow
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-05-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0486135160

Lucid, accessible introduction to the influential theory of energy and matter features careful explanations of Dirac's anti-particles, Bohr's model of the atom, and much more. Numerous drawings. 1966 edition.