A Tale of Two Continents: A Physicist's Life in a Turbulent World

by Abraham Pais

"People like myself, who truly feel at home in several countries, are not strictly at home anywhere," writes Abraham Pais, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, near the beginning of this engrossing chronicle of his life on two continents. The author of an immensely popular biography of Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord , Pais writes engagingly for a general audience. His "tale" describes his period of hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland (he ended the war in a Gestapo prison) and his life in America, particularly at the newly organized Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then directed by the brilliant and controversial physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Pais tells fascinating stories about Oppenheimer, Einstein, Bohr, Sakharov, Dirac, Heisenberg, and von Neumann, as well as about nonscientists like Chaim Weizmann, George Kennan, Erwin Panofsky, and Pablo Casals. His enthusiasm about science and life in general pervades a book that is partly a memoir, partly a travel commentary, and partly a history of science.

Pais's charming recollections of his years as a university student become somber with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. He was presented with an unusual deadline for his graduate a German decree that July 14, 1941, would be the final date on which Dutch Jews could be granted a doctoral degree. Pais received the degree, only to be forced into hiding from the Nazis in 1943, practically next door to Anne Frank. After the war, he went to the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen to work with Niels Bohr. 1946 began his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he worked first as a Fellow and then as a Professor until his move to Rockefeller University in 1963. Combining his understanding of disparate social and political worlds, Pais comments just as insightfully on Oppenheimer's ordeals during the McCarthy era as he does on his own and his European colleagues' struggles during World War II.

Originally published in 1997.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

552 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

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

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable. He knew absolutely everybody. He was there when the big developments took place. OK, it bogs down here and there, but this is almost as much a foundational document of 20C science as Pais's big history works. The story of his narrow escapes during WW2 is gripping.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather informal self-account of the life of Dutch-born American phycisist Abraham "Bram" Pais. I read a review that said the chronology of this book was hard to follow, but my prior knowledge of Pais helped me to follow the story. His early years make an interested tale, as Pais barely obtains his Ph.D before having to to into hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands, and of a scientist whose brilliance and dedication brought him into contact with some of the big scientific names of his day, and exciting developments in theoretical physics. While there were occasional passages that were beyond my understanding, overall I found this a very enjoyable book. This autobiography was added to my list after reading Pais's biography of Albert Einstein, "Subtle Is the Lord...".