Ten Physicists who Transformed our Understanding of Reality

by Brian Clegg, Rhodri Evans

Acclaimed popular-science writer Brian Clegg and popular TV and radio astronomer Rhodri Evans give us a Top Ten list of physicists as the central theme to build an exploration of the most exciting breakthroughs in physics, looking not just at the science, but also the fascinating lives of the scientists themselves.

The Top Ten are:

1.Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
2.Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
3.Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
4.Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
5.James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
6.Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
7.Marie Curie (1867-1934)
8.Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
9.Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
10.Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

Each of these figures has made a huge contribution to physics. Some are household names, others more of a mystery, but in each case there is an opportunity to combine a better understanding of the way that each of them has advanced our knowledge of the universe with an exploration of their often unusual, always interesting lives.

Whether we are with Curie, patiently sorting through tons of pitchblende to isolate radium or feeling Bohr's frustration as once again Einstein attempts to undermine quantum theory, the combination of science and biography humanizes these great figures of history and makes the Physics itself more accessible.

In exploring the way the list has been built the authors also put physics in its place amongst the sciences and show how it combines an exploration of the deepest and most profound questions about life and the universe with practical applications that have transformed our lives. The book is structured chronologically, allowing readers to follow the development of scientific knowledge over more than 400 years, showing clearly how this key group of individuals has fundamentally altered our understanding of the world around us.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, History

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 5, 2015

About the author

Brian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World.

Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.

Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.

Reviews

[John Gribbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2013, the Observer newspaper published a list of the “top ten” physicists of all time, presented in ann article by their science correspondent Robin McKie. They ranged from Isaac Newton in top spot down to Paul Dirac at number ten. Now, Rhodri Evan abd Brin Clegg have put together a set of biographical essays about each of the ten, but arranged chronologically instead of by their places on the hit parade, so Galileo comes first and Richard Feynman comes last. The essays are very short (the whole book is only just over 250 pages long), and aimed at absolute beginners. But as you would expect from these authors, they are all clear and accurate.
One of the games you can play with lists of this kind is choosing who you would include. I am amazed that Erwin Schrödinger dis not make the grade, nor Robert Hooke; but who do you leave out to make room for them?. And my own list would certainly put Dirac higher up. But it is probably a genuine reflection of scientific history that there is only one woman included, and I bet you can guess who she is (clue: her second Nobel Prize was for chemistry). And I was pleased to see them giving the lie to the myth that Galileo dropped weights from the leaning tower of Pisa.
This is a lovely book, easy to read, and sure to provoke debate. The only thing that stops me giving it five stars is the lack of a bibliography or guide to further reading, to steer readers towards sources where the questions raised here can be answered, and those debates settled.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Off to a good start, and thanks to John Gribbin for his review and recommendation, nearby.

It did strike me that the authors would have done better to chose 12 (or so) Best Modern Physicists, and then just give a couple of paragraphs to Galileo and Einstein. Really, how much new can you say in 4o pages about those two. I'm enjoying the Nils Bohr mini-bio, wherein I learned that, early on, he won a lifetime supply of Carlberg lager for his work. Good beer.

I read ( I think) three profiles of the men less familiar to me. All were competemt and informative, if not gripping, and when the book came due, back it went. No plans to continue.

[Henry Folds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Clegg and Evans produce a detailed biography for each of the 10 physicists in this book, and makes them much more relatable compared to how you might view them from a textbook.
They explain the impacts of the Physicists discoveries in a clear way. I'd recommend for anyone interested in science history.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a small, easy to read book, filled with interesting tidbits about some interesting people. I recommend this book.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stronger on the biographical than the scientific content, this taught me more about physicists than about physics itself, which I’m sure was intended by the authors. A pretty light introduction to the lives and work of ten of the most significant contributors to the broad field, this would certainly serve as an excellent stimulus to further study. As a biological scientist myself, I did find some of the claims/implications that those who theorised on equations underpinning physics at the extremes of temperature and scale are more important than those chemists and biologists whose work has had significant practical effects, but I understand the remit if the book was what it is.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book to read with sime interesting facts

[Maria Hajduga · Rating 5 out of 5]

🤓
So informative

[Francois Danis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I completely disagree with the order but never mind, the 10 selected are a good selection and the presentation of each of them seems correct and is written in an interesting way.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bits of this excellent book were a little rough going for me the science doofus, but I thoroughly enjoyed further acquaintance with these ten physicists.

[Jordan McElwee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book before, about 7 years ago, and I remember thinking that it was surprisingly interesting, so I thought I'd give it another go, being slightly older and more involved in the physics community. It appeared after the Observer newspaper published a list of 10 physicists who made the most important contributions to physics, so Brian Clegg and Rhodri Evans decided they would compile their own, and do a brief bio on each of them.

Spoiler coming up! The 10 physicists are mostly who you would guess, including Einstein, Curie and Galileo. They are described in chronological order (rather than the order they were given in the list), and with each comes a (pretty) detailed biography of each of them. The scientific contributions are detailed, but are definitely not the focus, and kept at a basic level so those unfamiliar with physics can understand it. With the story that the authors describe, it's basically a description of the state of the field for the past 500 years.

I found it really interesting to get a better description of all the physicists in the book, whose lives I never really studied, only the impacts they had on physics. No doubt it was the intention to focus more on their lives, and it was a good way to humanise the people who make grand contributions to science, who are often seen as almost deified figures. Personally, I would have liked to have a little more on their science, but this is a personal preference.

However, for my liking, the book was a little dry. There seemed to be lacking some form of narrative thread that carried you through, and felt more like a list of facts than a well written biography. Maybe this is how biographies usually read (I confess I'm not sure that I've read any..), but for me it personally didn't mesh.

I also think that maybe they could have expanded the book to contain a few more physicists that definitely could have been included. I feel like they locked themselves into a format, and then didn't want to break away from it, and therefore missed out on some interesting characters.

Overall it was an enjoyable book, and if you're interested in the history of science at all, then you will probably enjoy it. However, if you're into it for the science, then it's probably not the book for you. All that being said, it's not a long read, and it's very easy to digest. But sadly, I don't think there are many I would recommend it to.

[Carlos Guerrero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Llevaba un par de años retrasando esta lectura pero me ha gustado más de lo que esperaba. Trata temas muy interesantes en el ámbito de la ciencia, desde la física y matemáticas hasta la biología, todo explicado de forma sencilla haciéndose muy fácil de entender.
Es muy didáctico y visual ya que está lleno de fotografías y esquemas que ayudan a entender el tema que se trata en cada capítulo.
Es un muy buen libro para aprender sobre los temas que trata, se usa un lenguaje muy sencillo que no se hace nada difícil de comprender y me ha dejado con ganas de investigar más sobre algunos temas (como la física cuántica y la antimateria).

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

One could argue over the choice (as the authors admit) but the selection provides a nice coverage of development in physics over the last 450 years. As is usual with these popular books, the emphasis is on biography rather than the science itself, whereas as a practicing physicist I would have preferred the latter (but I appreciate that most people would not!). Also perhaps emphasises the theory over the experiments/observations that underpin those developments. But an enjoyable read and if it encourages more people to appreciate the importance of physics then that is a good thing.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be quite insightful into the lives of past physicists and how they got to their big contributions of science.

You can read it in order of chapters (which makes more sense as you can see science "evolve") or if there's someone you're excited about you can skip to their chapter.

Toward the end I found it to be more dry that earlier on, but that may be just me and my reading style.

All in all it was a good learning experience and was enjoyable to learn about some of the worlds greatest physicists.

[María A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it, it is not complex to understand without simplifying the concepts too much. The perfect example of a good divulgation book, though I would have preferred it to go deeper into certain topics. Still, highly recommended

[Anamya Goldfish Sailor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book really interesting because it not only talked about their discoveries but also their lives and how they came to their discovery.

[Americ Dos Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bonne révision !

[Stevedutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliantly written run-through of the history of modern physics; i.e. when ‘natural history’ became physics as we know it, beginning with Galileo, the commonly acknowledged father of modern science. The authors realize this through the lives of the top ten physicists who, in their opinion, have had the most significant effects on how we view our world. There will always, of course, be debates about who should be included, but not many would exclude Newton, Galileo, Bohr and Einstein from their list: the others, perhaps, might be rather more vulnerable to ousting.

The list, in chronological order, comprises: Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Curie, Rutherford, Einstein, Bohr, Dirac and Feynman. That is incontrovertible: having established the constituents of such a list the order of merit remains to be settled. Again, few would argue with Newton in first place and perhaps, Galileo in second? After all, it was he, amongst many other magnificent achievements, who championed Copernicus’s heliocentric view of the universe; and you’d be hard pushed to argue anything as fundamental as that. And so on and so on.

The arguments one way or another are fascinating in themselves and there is a concluding chapter that examines some of these. But it is the biographies of the leading players that really capture the romance of science at the cutting edge; potential solutions to the mysteries of existence formulated by remarkable individuals who, in a many cases, had to overcome serious adverse personal circumstances, in order to shed light amongst the darkness.

Apart from one or two caveats (e.g. the ‘throwing in’ of neutrinos with no prior intro!) this book can be thoroughly recommended to those with or without a science background: engaging, informative, educative, entertaining and thrilling. Not a lot more one could ask of a read.