商品簡介
While recognizing that quantum mechanics“demands serious attention,” Albert Einstein in1926 admonished fellow physicist Max Born thatthe theory “does not bring us closer to the secrets of the OldOne.” Aware that “there are deep mysteries that Nature intendsto keep for herself,” Freeman Dyson, the 94-year-old theoreticalphysicist, has nonetheless chronicled the stories of thosewho were engaged in solving some of the most challengingquandaries of twentieth-century physics. Written between 1940and the early 1980s, these letters to relatives form an historicaccount of modern science and its greatest players, including J.Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking,and Hans Bethe. Whether reflecting on the horrors of WorldWar II, the moral dilemmas of nuclear development, the challengesof the space program, or the considerable demands ofraising six children, Dyson offers a firsthand account of one ofthe greatest periods of scientific discovery of our modern age.
