The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery

by Abraham Pais

Physics might seem part of an alien culture to most people, but it has touched all our lives, and its byproducts, in the form of nuclear fission, are going to remain with us for many generations to come. It could be argued that the 20th century was the century of theoretical physics. The Genius of Science is, as its subtitle claims, a portrait gallery of 16 of the most interesting and eminent of the international physicists who helped change our view of the world--from Niels Bohr to Eugene Wigner. But the list of characters is much, much larger and interweaves most of the international network of physicists and other prominent scientists of the last century. Author Abraham Pais, an eminent American theoretical physicist and professor at Rockefeller University, has written acclaimed biographies of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, two of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. Pais was acquainted with many of the people he writes about, and he often appears in the book as a shadowy figure in the background. Anyone can dip into The Genius of Science anywhere in its pages and be immediately grabbed by both the extraordinary and the ordinary aspects of the lives of these scientists. The author provides plenty of anecdotes, from those about Bohr's pipe-smoking to Robert Oppenheimer's reaction to the first successful atomic bomb "... some lines of the Bhagavad Gita went through his I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Pais wants to bring life back to these people, but not in any salacious way; he admits to having "never been interested in entering others' bedrooms." If you want psycho-biography or scandal, you will not find it here. But the general reader will get a sense of the trials, tribulations, and excitement of the scientific life. There are plenty of references for those who want to follow up the details, and there's a useful index of characters mentioned in the text. --Douglas Palmer, Amazon.co.uk

Genres: Physics, Biography, History Of Science, Nonfiction, Science

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2000

About the author

Abraham Pais was a physicist, specialising in particle physics, who became a well-known science historian later in life, having worked closely with prominent scientists such as Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.

Reviews

[Scott Bembenek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again, Pais attempts to give you his unique insight and perspective into the lives and works of scientists. However, here most of the scientists are not well known. I think he does a good job rising to this challenge. Nonetheless, I would not recommend this as an introduction to Pais' work as I am convinced you need to be a bit of fan in this case. To that point, the fan in me wants to give this a 4 star rating but the realist is giving it 3 stars (at least for now). For a solid introduction to Pais' work pick up "Subtle is the lord ..." (to be sure, Pais pulls no punches with the physics in that book -- if you don't like, I would skip over it and enjoy the story that he tells throughout).

[Mallory · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan of this book. In fact, I gave up trying to finish it halfway through because it felt like punishment.

First, I love the idea of it: a collection of short biographies of famous scientists (mainly physicists), written by a scientist. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the scientist who wrote it got the "biography" part. He states in his forward that he intends to cover both personal information and professional accomplishments, but he goes into extreme detail about each of the important contributions these great scientists made to (usually) the field of physics. He basically lays out each scientists scientific premises, complete with jargon, and including formulae. Cue me blanking out portions of the book, sometimes pages at a time. From that aspect, I do not recommend this book to anyone who doesn't understand physics. I'm sure for someone with a grasp on these concepts, the book would be much more interesting and enjoyable. For the average non-scientific person (i.e., me) this was not at all appropriate.

I also found Pais's writing style uneven, sometimes awkward, and not at all suited to biography. So, he knew and worked with many of these scientists, making the personal anecdotes some of my favorite parts of the book, but sometimes the random pieces of personal information he dropped in the book were completely out of place. He also tended to write his biographies like he was writing a scientific paper, complete with introduction that says: "I am going to be talking about scientist X who discovered Y. I will first discuss his early childhood, then his educational background, and finally cover his many accomplishments in the field of Z." I mean, very well done for writing in the style you know, but maybe you should expand on that if you're going to write in the biographical genre. I also felt Pais used this time to air academic grudges and peccadilloes and nitpick with scientists who are now mostly dead. Again, this was jarring to the overall flow of the stories being told. I know academics love to discuss and argue who and what is right and wrong in their particular field, but I think Pais could have kept that to his papers published in peer reviewed journals, and not a compilation of biographies. Unless he thought his only audience, ever by publishing this was going to be fellow scientists who could both understand what the hell he was talking about and cared about the points he would argue.

Overall, a good premise for a book, but appears to aim to a very narrow audience, not really for the general public.

[Perhaad Mistry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an excellent review of all of Pais's friends in the post-WWII era and their contributions to modern physics.

It covers a healthy mix of personal matters and their contribution to physics both. It provides more mathematical background than Pais's book on Oppenheimer but *much* less than Subtle is Our Lord which I am reading now.

Everyone always knew about Einstein, Bohr, Von Neumann and Dirac, the nicest part of this book is the coverage of relatively lesser known heros like Robert Serber and T.D Lee and Kramer.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather patchy book consisting of a collection of essays on a number of leading 20th century physicists, all known by the the author. Perhaps half of the essays are actually re-treads of talks given by the author, for example at meetings held in memorial to the subject. Others were written specifically for this book and they read rather differently (and better). There's no attempt at a coherent line or narrative and there's a fair bit of duplication, as might be expected given the provenance.

As with some of the author's other works, there's a tendency to switch instantaneously from accessible material to stuff that even many physics graduates would, I suspect, fail to understand. This is a little odd and might be seen as a defect in such a book, although I quite like it as it gives a sense of the depth of the researches even if I have little idea what they mean! The timeline and narrative within each portrait is also sometimes a little confusing - almost as if they were written without a plan.

The author refers to most of the subjects as having been his friends and he is generally positive about all of them but not without pointing out some less positive features. I think that's a reasonable balance given the circumstances.

Worth a read to get short portraits of some of the scientists you may not have read much about.

[Tue Le · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pais offers a biographical sketch of a number of notable physicists---and, in the case of John von Neumann, a mathematician and polymath---from the twentieth century from the perspective of a colleague. With the exception of Albert Einstein, of whom he wrote an extensive scientific biography, people whom he knew best had a more detailed portrayal. Pais has also written a good biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.