A Passion for Discovery

This fascinating book assembles human stories about physicists and mathematicians. Remarkably, these stories cluster around some general themes having to do with the interaction between scientists, and with the impact of historic events — such as the advent of fascism and communism in the twentieth century — on scientists' behavior. Briefly, but lucidly, some of the beautiful science that brought these scientists together in the first place is explained.

Author's webpage: http://freund9.googlepages.com/peterfreundwritings.

Contents:

• Einstein Once Removed
• The Conscience of Physics
• The Language of God
• Oswald Teichmüller and Nazi Science
• Scientists in Politics
• Jews in Science. The Backlash
• Stalin and the Quantum
• Oppenheimer, Hero or Antihero?
• On and Off the Map: Romanian Mathematics
• A Brief History of Space
• as well as chapters on Richard Feynman, E C G Stueckelberg, Emmy Noether, Andrei Sakharov, and others

Readership: Primarily general readers, and particularly theoretical physicists, mathematicians and high energy experimental physicists.
Key Features:

• Lively stories that make fascinating scientists come to life
• Find out how scientists work and how they fit into society
• Gain an appreciation of many of the beautiful ideas at the very core of modern physics
• Working physicists and mathematicians can flesh out their knowledge of major practitioners of their science, about whom they know little at the human level