商品簡介
This biography of Leon Rosenfeld is also a book about politics and the history of science. Rosenfeld was a quantum physicist and collaborator with Nels Bohr. He was also a European Jewish nuclear scientist who survived the Holocaust era, a Marxist and an advocate for ideological freedom, and a thinker about the relationship between science and society. His work was influential not only in physics but in history. He pushed hard for the physicists with whom he worked to preserve their records, and was involved with seminal historian of science Thomas Kuhn in the preservation of oral and written history around the Einsteinian revolution and the development of nuclear physics. Biographer Anja Skaar Jacobsen points out that this major figure in physics is a microcosm of Twentieth century intellectual history, but while he helped to create the lasting fame of his colleagues, little has been written about his own life and work. This biography is based on archival research in several languages and countries. It is clearly and engagingly written for readers with an interest in science and society. Jacobsen's central theme is that Rosenfield saw a relationship between the idea of Marxist dialectical materialism and the complementarily hypothesis in quantum physics, and that for him it was a reflection of a larger truth about the universe: that knowledge is relational rather than absolute, and that good intellectual, social, scientific, and human choices come from dialogue. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
