Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters

by Freeman Dyson

A lifetime of candid reflections from physicist Freeman Dyson, “an acute observer of personality and human foibles” ( New York Times Book Review ). Written between 1940 and the late 1970s, the postwar recollections of renowned physicist Freeman Dyson have been celebrated as an historic portrait of modern science and its greatest players, including Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, and Hans Bethe. Chronicling the stories of those who were engaged in solving some of the most challenging quandaries of twentieth-century physics, Dyson lends acute insight and profound observations to a life’s work spent chasing what Einstein called those “deep mysteries that Nature intends to keep for herself.” Whether reflecting on the drama of World War II, the moral dilemmas of nuclear development, the challenges of the space program, or the demands of raising six children, Dyson’s annotated letters reveal the voice of one “more creative than almost anyone else of his generation” (Kip Thorne). An illuminating work in these trying times, Maker of Patterns is an eyewitness account of the scientific discoveries that define our modern age. Frontispiece

Genres: Biography, Science, Nonfiction, Physics, History, Autobiography, Memoir

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2018

About the author

Freeman Dyson was a physicist and educator best known for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations and for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He theorized several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, Dyson tree, Dyson series, and Dyson sphere.

The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.

Reviews

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not have any great discovery like the double helix to describe. The letters record the daily life of an ordinary scientist doing ordinary work. I find them interesting because I had the good fortune to live through extraordinary historical times with an extraordinary collection of friends.

Freeman Dyson wrote some of my favourite essays and book reviews, mostly because he has got a way of thinking about things from a very, very big perspective. Luckily there's this new autobiography!

We get Dyson's letters starting in 1941, when he was 17 years old and starting university, and end in 1978, with a near death experience during a mugging, when Dyson was around 55. He is now 94 and still writing essays for NYRB.
These letters are structured like Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther - we only get Dyson's letters, the answers from his mother or sister are always omitted. I like that format, as I'm interested in that particular area of history, I wouldn't care too much about Dyson's family's opinions. You need to be acquainted with Dyson's life and the history of physics around 1920-1950 to get the most out of this book; there are many comments in italics by 2016 Dyson explaining some of the names and references, but frequent jumps (some by 6 months or more) make it hard to tease Dyson's life history from these letters.

I don't know much about physics but I know more about the history of physics. All the big names appear here and had contact with Dyson - Feynman features extensively (Dyson paints him in a very positive picture) as does Oppenheimer, Dirac appears, as do Besicovitch, Pars, Hawking, Yukawa, W. T. (Bill) Tutte, Bethe, Teller, but also amazing non-scientists: Léon Motchane (rich industrialist in the 20s, then member of the French resistance (wounded in action), then PhD in mathematics at the age of 54 (!!!), then used his wealth to found IHES), T.S. Eliot (!!!), Stanley Kubrick, etc.

Some notes:

- If you're looking for a general intro to 'what it's like to be a scientist', do not go for this book. Dyson lived and worked through a peculiar and unique time in an extremely vibrant environment, that's the 0.0000001% of science. Since then science as profession has become much more streamlined, controlled, and evaluated. Dyson writes about a fellowship he received which included costs for 'a summer of travel' - nowadays that's unthinkable. Produce papers or perish, no time to bum around for a few months.

- I have to read more about Henry Moseley. Dyson credits Moseley for saving Dyson from being drafted: Moseley was a promising physicist who was killed in 1915, after which the British government drafted laws to exempt promising young scientists in any war. There's a whole book possible around what these laws made possible!

- Dyson, especially the young Dyson, was amazingly shrewd, self-confident, and clear-sighted. I have no clue how he managed to do that at such a young age (an academic family probably helped in understanding academic political structures), but sentences such as this one show you how well he grasped his situation and position, and how good he was at seeing the big picture:

During the next five years, there is a gambler’s chance of my doing something substantial in this field, but only if I give it a lot of my time and attention. The important thing is to use this chance while it is here. By the time I am forty, the game will be played out.

That was in 1948, when Dyson was 25. I know scientists in their 40s who don't understand their position as well as Dyson did back then. Dyson was correct in that this particular field of science quickly 'dried out', bigger and bigger particle accelerators were necessary to get results.

- there are some wonderfully understated short scenes, Dyson got around!

I had a telephone call from London, a film magnate called Roger Caras asking me to come to his studio to help them with a science fiction film called Encounter 2001. Stanley Kubrick, who directed Dr. Strangelove, is also doing this one.

or

FEBRUARY 28, 1970 I was taking care of Stephen Hawking, a young English astrophysicist who came here for a six-day visit. I had never got to know him till this week. Stephen is a brilliant young man who is now dying in the advanced stages of a paralytic nerve disease. He got the disease when he was twenty-one and he is now twenty-eight, so his whole professional life has been lived under sentence of death.

- there are some concerns which you usually don't find in physics autobiographies. Dyson (quotes as 'having been brought up as a socialist') had an eye for social injustices. There is one letter complaining about the squandered life of a promising African-American scientist (Walter Macafee) who could have done so much more if he wouldn't have needed to work in poverty for most of his life, in 1948, when Dyson was 25:

He is much older than the rest of us and has the handicap of his lost years. His story is an object lesson in the wastefulness of the discrimination policy.

Or this one:

I heard King speak in Berkeley about fifteen years ago, before he became famous, and I always had a great belief in him. He was far and away the greatest and most far-sighted of the Negro leaders. I do not blame the negroes at all for rioting now. If I were black, I would be out in the streets with them.

(Apologising note in another letter by 2016-Dyson: 'In those days the word negro was used as African-American is used today.')
There's another wonderful passage where Dyson describes the advances made by Japanese scientists in the 50s and 60s, and how happy he is that some of the Japanese advances anticipated US inventions:

If the scientists can say that even in this chosen field of physics America was anticipated, and indeed by a member of the much-despised race of Japanese, this will be a strong card to play against nationalistic policies.

- a wonderfully dry British humor:

About ten thousand Princetonians came to watch and got in the way to some extent.

- it's interesting to see how fears can take hold of a society and then drop off completely, even their names forgotten. Dyson lists a prime example in his explanatory notes:

The “European situation” here means the fear that the rising population of Europe would be unable to feed itself. This fear was particularly strong in 1948 in England and in Germany. The expected disaster never happened, partly because birth rates remained lower than expected and partly because the Green Revolution made food production higher than expected.

Have you ever heard of the 'European situation'? I haven't.

- The final few sentences summarise well the kind of thought building Dyson operates in:

[Young people] need to understand why science has failed to give us fair shares and social justice, and they need to work out practical remedies. This is not a job for scientists to do alone. It will need a worldwide collaboration of scientists with economists, political activists, environmentalists, and religious leaders, to lift science and society out of the swamp where we are stuck. Pure science is best driven by intellectual curiosity, but applied science needs also to be driven by ethics.

Recommended for: people interested in how great minds work, or those who are interested in the history of the Knabenphysik.

not recommended for: people who don't want to put in at least a little effort to first learn this history, or people who are not interested in this (to me!) highly exciting short time in science. I find that time so interesting - I don't think there's any other field of research where one or two decades of a flurry of research by very young people changed everything, it's like reading about a continuous explosion, like watching a 20 year long meteor shower.

[Cory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am such a Freeman Dyson fan girl. It's taken me over two years to read even just half of his "Disturbing the Universe" and it's still one of my favorite books of all time. Dyson has such a gift for connecting big and small ideas and describing people. This is true in "Maker of Patterns" as well but it is much easier to read through letters than the dense, carefully crafted chapters of "Disturbing the Universe." Dyson is a thinker and a guy who has lived a full life and when you combine that with the fact that he's an incredible writer, it just works.

You might compare Dyson's book to Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" I read both a few years before reading Dyson's books. "Surely" is accessible to all audiences whereas the back half of WDYCWOPT reads more like Dyson's book because it is more serious and technical politically and scientifically. I prefer Dyson because he is more humble and introspective than Feynman.

It helps (but is not necessary) to have a background in math and/or physics. I think I absorbed about 80% of what I could from his book. I fumbled through the political parts because I didn't live through that era. I even skimmed the scientific parts I didn't understand and didn't lose much. I found the parts about his family and the people he met the most interesting (hey, I love drama). Dyson has such a wide network of famous mathematicians and scientists that whenever he met one, I was enthralled by the crossover. If those people aren't familiar to you, it might have been boring. Thankfully, Dyson can bring out the most honest and interesting parts in a person and there were plenty of new people to meet.

One thing that I just realized is that this book actually isn't that much about Freeman Dyson. I think that comes from the nature of the letter-writing to his parents. He is describing and reflecting on what he's observing. He severely downplays his own achievements or tragedies which is refreshing. It's not an Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, or Bobby Fischer type story that Hollywood would want to get its hands on. There's no overarching plot (each chapter has a loose theme though). Dyson's just a guy dutifully writing to his parents every week and we get to be a fly on the wall.

This is the kind of book that I am so happy to have read but would not recommend to everyone. It's long and probably could have been shortened. But it's authentic and has so many rich gems. I would rather talk enthusiastically about certain letters and chapters with people than have them read it themselves.

When I was in Princeton last month, I secretly wished that I would see Freeman Dyson walking down the streets so I could tell my grandchildren I saw him (he's 95 now). My grandmother once saw Einstein walking down the streets of Princeton so it would be a nice parallel. If you read Dyson's book, you'll find moments where coincidences like that do have a small, happy place in our lives.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are some excerpts from the NYRB, published in 2018 to promote this, Dyson's last book:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018...
This is where to start, and it's a fair selection of what you will get, if you read the book. It's pretty choppy, as you might expect, but Dyson lived a very interesting life. He selected letters from 1941 to 1978, edited them, and added commentary. All in the last years of his life, turning in the manuscript in 2017 (I think), at age 94. Dyson was a frequent contributor to the NYRB over the years.

Good stuff, and it gets better as you get into it. I'm a long-time Dyson admirer. This shouldn't be the first Dyson book you read. That should be "Disturbing the Universe" and/or "The Sun, the Genome and the Internet." Both of these were 5-star books for me. I have a review of the second here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

He passed away this past February 2020 at age 96. RIP ♰

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been a unique adventure for me. Letters are a very intimate thing to me. I consider myself very lucky to be able to read such intimate words from such a remarkable member of our species. The content of the letters is a captivating mixture of everyday deeds and thoughts and revolutionary top-notch science stuff, with additional relevant and interesting comments by Dyson from a today-point-of-view. It was inconceivable to me how a single human was able to have contact with like everyone that mattered in physics in the 20th century, like Bohr, Bethe, Dirac, Feynman, Oppenheimer, Pauli just to name very few. Especially fascinating to me were the letters describing Feynman or Oppenheimer, not only their work, but also them as individual humans with feelings, thoughts, attitudes etc. I love how Dyson was able to work in so many different fields, coming from a basic education in mathematics, then contributing to the fields of number theory, quantum field theory, astrophysics, condensed matter physics and nuclear engineering. This book was very special. I am very grateful.

[Arun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great as always! RIP.

[Octoberbear · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really very touched by this collection of essays, written from mid 1940s to mid 1970s, as letters to his mother and then sister (after his mom passed away in the 70s).

The letters narrate all sorts of events, from frivolous complaints about the immigration system (what the family had to deal with in their early days in the US), to father-and-son relationships, to atomic bomb and Mars projects. For every issue, Dyson writes down his memory in plain and somewhat humorous language, and gives his thoughtful and yet concise reflections and analysis on the state of the affairs.

My favorite episodes that I haven’t finished taking notes on:
(1) on serving on the jury and reflections on the justice system (page 309)
(2) on death of the Orion project (page 314)
(3) on the physicist S. Hawking (page 342)
(4) on death of father (page 313)
(5) on death of mother (page 327)
(6) on death of Oppenheimer (page 321)
(7) on adventures with his son George (last few letters)
(8) on an assault in Washington and reflection on human nature (last letter)

It touches me the most to see the well-rounded character of this scientist. You get a sense that he truly cars about the people around him (from his detailed writing of his relationship with mentors, Bethe, Oppenheimer, and Feynman, to his observation and accounts of colleagues including Lee, Yang, Wu, which he tries to stay impartial to and stay positive with). You get a sense that he also stays open minded about how each and everyone of his relationships evolves and always acknowledge people when they bring him something bright in life (especially women, he sees the subtlety, strengths, and beauty in all these women , often scientists, around him and always gave them credits!) He thinks deeply about human conditions and social issues, and cares deeply about ethics of his endeavors.

After reading, I felt like I have made a genuine, fun, and soulful friend. I wish that he had been alive for a bit more, but I’m more joyful about the fact that we share many things in common. I learned how to improve my journal writing from him and feel more encouraged to share my writings.

On writing:
(1) good style for me is precision, concision, and humor.
(2) index, chronologically and by keywords
(3) edit (make footnotes and write contexts)

[Rohit Goswami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book. I cannot give less than three stars to a life and because of the nature of the collection. Dyson is not the sort of academic I admire. In fact, he is the exact opposite. The leisurely academic with more time to prance into politics and off on vacations. Someone who knew best the way into the public perception, who took a lazy approach to science and was in the right place at the right time more often than not. This is not a good look for academia. Nevertheless, certain aspects remain unfortunately true. Work and degrees, count for less importance compared to convincing people of one's worth. However his letters are fun to read and unfiltered. He was clearly a good person, just not an academic inspiration.

[Rāhul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freeman Dyson is an English mathematician and theoretical physicist, of the generation after the likes of Feynman and Schwinger, who lived through many of the mid-20th century's momentous events. It was a time when theoretical physics was at the forefront of the world's imagination- from questions of energy security to war strategy to philosophy. Later years would prove much of this promise unrealized but the great physicists of the time still loom large in our imagination.

Dyson was an inspired mathematician, but also someone educated in the broad European tradition, speaking German & Russian, and reading Lev Tolstoy & Thomas Mann between solving theorems. Since leaving for Cambridge and for years later, Dyson kept up correspondence with his mother, writing eruditely about the luminaries he met and his ringside seat on events shaking the world. Letters from the early 1940s to the late 60s form the bulk of this book, with the earliest letters focusing most on his own education and work, then on the great scientists he worked with, and then matters of life & love. The letters were saved, at Dyson's direction, by his mother and are now published here with annotations and explanations.

Dyson studied at Cambridge with Hardy and worked with allied bomber command during the war, spent time in Germany with erstwhile enemies soon after, then was a student of Bethe at Cornell where he met Feynman and went on to join the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton where some of humanity's brightest are paid simply to think. Dyson's interactions with endlessly fascinating scientists like Feynman and Oppenheimer, his views on the terror of the early days of nuclear weaponry, and work with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on some sort of international control of nuclear energy form some of the sections of most general interest. His insider's views of academia is a windown on how some results are driven by personalities rather than pure work, and how politics often impact the way credit is offered. For example, Dyson feels a rising nationalism in post-war American science with new homegrown theoreticians to supplement existing American dominance in experimental physics, and senses an effort by the Physics community to spread the credit of some new discoveries (with some scientific justification as well) to others. In Dyson's interactions with Feynman, Oppenheimer and Teller, one sees fierce disagreements but also an ability to restrict them to specific matters in a way that displays supreme self confidence and mutual respect. Oppenheimer comes across as a renaissance man, but also a tragic figure of many inconsistencies.

In extended breaks from the Institute, Dyson worked with General Atomics in California, first on the successful TRIGA reactor and then on the doomed Project Orion which attempted to propel spacecrafts with controlled nuclear explosions. The latter was hobbled by technical challenges, and crippled by the partial test ban treaty. Dyson's letters in this period are very interesting, written as they are without the benefit of hindsight. One might also notice some self-serving arguments that we are all prone to when we make personal decisions. Dyson's roles in the FAS and Project Orion contrasted with each other in the great test ban debates of the day.

To sum up, Freeman Dyson collects these beautifully written letters about a life lived in the thick of things in a time when Physics was at its apogee of promise, both for saving and for destroying humanity. Below are some quotes that resonated with me.

Having worked at the British bomber command, the young Dyson had the perspective soon after the war in his visit to Germany to write- "I had killed enough Germans, and I wanted to make peace with the survivors. We all knew that the Germans had committed atrocities, and we had too. The victims who died in the camp at Bergen-Belsen were about as many as those who died in the firestorm at Dresden. I felt some personal responsibility for those who died at Dresden. To reach a tolerably peaceful world, we needed reconciliation more than we needed justice."

About his adopted home of America and the relative friendliness that all visitors find here, Dyson wrote- "Not that I dislike the Americans on the whole; it is probably in the long run a good thing that they live so much in the present and the future and so little in the past. The fact that they are more alone in the world than average English people probably accounts for their great spontaneous friendliness. I had heard this friendliness attributed to the size of the country and to people’s loneliness in space, but I think the loneliness in time is more important."

On a visit to a Princeton museum, Dyson gives an account of the Chinese Physicist Ning Hu- "Ning Hu maintains that there are only two outstanding artistic achievements, and he places these two on an equal footing. They are, Western music and Eastern painting". This reminded me of many conversations with Chinese colleagues I have had myself, of their view, sometimes expressed less directly, that their culture is distinct from and co-equal with the best in the west, and above all else.

An interlocutor tells Dyson- "He also talked to Nehru. Nehru said it would be a fine thing for India to have nuclear reactors to power the new factories, because India has such poor roads and railways and they cannot transport enough coal from the coalfields. So he would like America to supply him with a reactor or two. This American said, “I just couldn’t make the man understand that it’s no good having factories if you don’t have the roads to take away the stuff the factories make.”" Anyone with an interest in 20th century India would find this anecdote a pithy summary of the Nehruvian attitude and its mixed blessings for India.

When his wife Verena's decision to leave comes abruptly to Dyson, her writes beautifully- "As Blake [1799] says in these lines which I have long known but never rightly understood till now,
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun-rise."

On his experience listening to MLK's "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln memorial by a fortuitous accident- "From two till four they had the official speeches at the Lincoln Memorial. It was very effective to have the huge figure of Lincoln towering over the speakers. The speeches were in general magnificent. All the famous negro leaders spoke, except James Farmer, who sent a message in writing from a Louisiana jail. The finest of them was Martin Luther King, who talks like an Old Testament prophet. He held the whole 250,000 spellbound with his biblical oratory. I felt I would be ready to go to jail for him anytime. I think this whole affair has been enormously successful. All these 250,000 people behaved with perfect good temper and discipline all day long. And they have made it unmistakeably clear that if their demands are not promptly met, they will return one day in a very different temper. Seeing all this, I found it hard to keep the tears from running out of my eyes."

On facing his mother's passing, Dyson writes evocatively- "A close encounter with death teaches us important truths about human nature. We are not only social animals. We are also fighting animals. We may dream of universal brotherhood, but when the bugle sounds, we run bravely into battle. Battered and bruised in a surprise attack, I found myself unexpectedly reacting to it with calm courage and joy. I could handle it much better than I would ever have imagined. In every culture and every battlefield, from the Spartans at Thermopylae to the Jews at Masada, the men who died in battle are remembered and honored as heroes. In the battle of Princeton, George Washington rode his horse at the head of his troops, a conspicuous target for the British sharpshooters. He knew that an act of reckless bravery would make him a more effective leader of his country in the long struggle that lay ahead. In the future as in the past, reckless bravery will be honored, and fighters will be leaders. We must try as hard as we can to make peace with our enemies and get rid of weapons of mass destruction, but we cannot expect to extinguish the fighting spirit and tribal loyalty that are deeply ingrained in our nature. Perpetual peace is a worthy goal, but it is likely to remain out of our reach. A world of turmoil and violence is our legacy to future generations. They need to understand why science has failed to give us fair shares and social justice, and they need to work out practical remedies. This is not a job for scientists to do alone. It will need a worldwide collaboration of scientists with economists, political activists, environmentalists, and religious leaders, to lift science and society out of the swamp where we are stuck. Pure science is best driven by intellectual curiosity, but applied science needs also to be driven by ethics."

[Leonard Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. If you are interested in Freeman Dyson’s life and letters then by all means bump that rating up to 4 or 5 stars as this is obviously the book for you. I personally enjoyed this book but am trying to be mindful in my rating of those readers who may not know or care who Freeman Dyson is There is still something to gain from spending time with such an intelligent writer, but this is hardly an essential must-read for everyone.

[Bogdan Teodorescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally read this!!! And what a book it was! A relatively unknown book, it is the autobiography (the memoirs, actually) of an amazing scientist and character, Freeman Dyson. It is made mostly after the letters Freeman Dyson sent to his mother over the years, letters she religiously kept.

Great read for anyone dreaming of a career in science. Actually, for anybody passionate about science.

"The billiard table was for two years the center of my life. It belonged to Besicovitch and stood in the big room where he entertained guests on the ground floor of his home in Neville's Court. He was addicted to billiards, and Hardy, who had been a passionate cricketer in his youth, was a passionate billiard player in his old age. Whenever I needed to talk with either of them, I could usually find them at the billiard table. Fortunately my father had bought a billiard table when I was a child and taught me how to play. Our table was more modest than Besicovitch's, but I could play well enough to pass the time with the famous professors."

"My young colleagues are unwilling to join me, as they are obsessed with the American idea that you have to work from nine to five even when the work is theoretical physics."

"On the third day of the journey a remarkable thing happened; going into a sort of semistupor as one does after forty-eight hours of bus riding , I began to think very hard about physics, and particularly about the rival radiation theories of Schwinger and Feynman. Gradually my thoughts grew more coherent, and before I knew where I was, I had solved the problem that had been in the back of my mind all this year, which was to prove the equivalence of the two theories. (.....) This piece of work is neither difficult nor particularly clever, but it is undeniably important if nobody else has done it in the meantime."

[MD · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book uses the possibly unique approach of building an autobiography using the subject’s letters to his parents as the foundation. This provides for a story in which the writer doesn’t know how things will turn out as well as preserving the point of view of the time when the letter was written. Freeman Dyson has lived an extraordinary life surrounded by other extraordinary people. Ordinarily I don’t much care for autobiographies but I found this one riveting. If you are interested in physics you will probably find the glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the world’s preeminent physicists adds even more interesting. But even without that interest I found this journey from wartime England to postwar Germany and then US academia through the Cold War and beyond fascinating reading.

I read an ARC of this book which I received from the Goodreads first reads program.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not for everyone, but I enjoyed it immensely and was truly sad when it came to the end. It is a very unconventional autobiography, constructed using letters Dyson wrote to his parents and his older sister, who remained in his native England while Dyson had emigrated to America after WWII. Dyson is humble, thoughtful, and unafraid to be self-critical. He is well read in the arts while being a brilliant physicist. His life was incredibly interesting to me, and publishing this book at the age of 93, he remains lucid and able to look back on his past with a calmness and serenity we should all wish for. His family relationships are just as interesting as the work he did and described in the book. I plan to find other books that he wrote and read them too.

[Scott Kardel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maker of Patterns is an interesting autobiography written by Freeman Dyson, one of the top physicists of the Twentieth Century. His book is focused much more on his life (as told through his letters home) than his science. While some of his scientific work is discussed, there is much more about his relationships with people both in academics and his personal life.

[فرهاد ذکاوت · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not think Prof. Dyson's Autobiography through his letters is not the first approach of such in. There were two other examples but not autobiographies which are worth to read for physics enthusiasts. Asimov (by his brother actually), Feynman (by his daughter).

But there is an importance for someone who studies history of modern physics and related subjects in 20th century from WW2 to cold war till 70s. There are many observations by Dyson and his comments while writing this book, which are important. This format of autobiography is actually rare but superior to biographies which are not first handed and not based on those dates notes and letters.

We can find evidences from Feynman to Oppenheimer who has been a trend in 2023 due to the movie which was a disaster if we consider timeline, events and aspects that two authors of his biography, could focus on (Nolan could do much better this.). He describes his 1st hand observation on WW2, Politicians and scientists of the time involving the wars and projects. If the reader is has a general familiarity with other physicists and politics, can find some puzzles in his notes.

For the record as far as I know 20th century history of physics and personally talked to some, including prof. Dyson, His contribution in political aspects of applied science was important and necessary beside of others who did, against other side of the behind the scenes.

If someone says he was an undisciplined and lazy physicist, it is due to their pure ignorance and motivated by two sentences of his in this letters called himself lazy. Undeciplied physics scholar is called physics not an employee or engineer, but pure scientists and a thinker. He was very much busy with mathematics, physics and applied physics.

His contribution was enormously important. It was him who introduced Feynman interpretation of QED that made people to understand him this unification (EM and QM). It was after Dysons formulation of QED that Hans Bethe said a word about Feynman (Magician). He was, but without Dyson maybe history of physics would be a little different. Bethe quoted that we were giants of that time but could not find the solution for QED. There was a young man called Feynman who did. Actually it was more, but just as an example I mentioned this particular work of his. This book can be a great source to learn about some people in physics who are mentioned a lot in modern physics. But still physics students (unfortunately not these decades) can or have to get familiar with people and their visions on their theories or experiments to find their own vision if they would like to. Seeing how they can think about specific subjects. And most importantly as students, they can read about tough theys of physics giants in their own lifes and not just peak days of their careers. It helps a lot avoiding depression and disappointments during studies, or being insulted by this new uneducated programmers who called themselves physics professors.

Dyson's efforts on disarmament argues on the senate level and back scenes was not little. He was a man with some luck, right time and right place; but there are many people at this point and they do not recognise. Most important point is that someone has to have much more than enough knowledge and skills which takes a lifetime (for some people not so long but a lot of knowledge, practice and very different vision, so that right time and right place, creates something out of it.

[Peter Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freeman lived such an exciting and dramatic life that I can hardly believe it belonged to a theoretical physicist. The most moving part for me was when he felt personally responsible for the suicide of a young Japanese researcher, Taro Asano, at the Institute for Advanced Study. Following the suicide, he accompanied the researcher's widow on a flight back to Japan, with the widow announcing—to all the passengers on the airplane—that Freeman had killed her husband and was planning to kill her next. In reality, Freeman had not literally killed her husband, but he had failed to properly supervise Taro's research, which led Taro to falling into a depression and ultimately killing himself. I had read many great things about the Institute for Advanced Study in other books (forming this picture in my mind of an idyllic intellectual atmosphere), but I had no idea of the tragedies that took place. It was furthermore shocking to learn in the book how emotionally unstable Robert Oppenheimer could be, who not only fathered the atomic bomb but also served as director of the institute. One likes to dream that geniuses are able to transcend ordinary human vices, but history and biographies teach that this is not true.

[Lisa St Clair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Unique format alternates between letters the author wrote starting when he was a teenager with reflective, present day commentary. One does not need to understand physics to read this book - value is in the historical perspective brought in the moment and via the reflections added. Seeing the author's writing style change and the deeply reflective nature throughout also made this book special.

[Peter Reczek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading all the anecdotes that kept the pace of the book going but was a bit disappointed in coming away with a "Forrest Gump" view of all the important people Dyson knows rather than an understanding of how his mind works. The format of an autobiography through letters was a clever touch.

[Kevin Hodgson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me month to read this, reading it in sections. A mix of letters and context narrative, Dyson explores his life of a leading scientist from a very humanistic approach ...complete with failures, regret and breakthroughs. Dyson’s circles often involved many of the leading scientists and mathematicians of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

[Kristine Tague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a bit to read this- it is a collection of letters in chronological order that Mr. Dyson wrote over his lifetime, with notes before and after as to the content and context of them. It was interesting to read! It was perfect for picking up at odd intervals since there wasn’t really a narrative to follow. I would recommend it.

[Cosmic Jae · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book provides a unique and intimate look into the mind of a theoretical physicist. Reading his letters makes me feel as if I was right there in the middle of the exciting new discoveries in particle physics in the 40s, 50s. While Freeman Dyson doesn’t go too much in-depth on the discoveries, you can still sense the thrill and excitement of discovery.

[Christopher Stumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read Dyson's real time perspectives of historical events, in the form of letters to his parents. Surprising how many things from the past remain relevant today.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. He knew lots of cool people.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of surprises. The best book that I have read this year.

[Brad Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this would be a slow, dry read, but it was very engaging. Dyson has a dry wit and often mischievous humor that comes through clearly in his letters.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was not expecting the Joe Biden cameo.

[Greg Fanoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit slight, to be honest but a very nice read overall. Freeman Dyson was one of the true greats.

[10zin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's nice to read about history as it happens, without posterior analysis in the way. An interesting time.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really neat book, and inspiring. Collects lightly edited letters, written over decades, to form an autobiography that doesn't impose much hindsight.

[Naj · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scientist and a human!