Description
Book Synopsis
Otto Frisch took part in some of the most exciting developments of modern physics, including the discovery of nuclear fission -- he coined that term -- which led to atomic power and atomic weapons. Working on those weapons during World War II he met the scientist and organizer, Robert Oppenheimer, and the passionate maverick, Edward Teller, as well as the mathematical genius, John von Neumann, from whom he first heard about electronic computers, which were just coming into being.
He was still a child when Einstein rose to fame and when Bohr devised his atomic model, based on Rutherford''s discovery of the atomic nucleus; but later he met all those great scientists (and many others) and indeed worked for five years in Copenhagen under Bohr, whom he regarded as the deepest thinker among them. By vividly describing our growing knowledge of matter and energy he creates the background for his (mostly) affectionate pen portraits, enlivened by entertaining anecdotes, of the many scientists
Trade Review
'In writing a charming, light-hearted cameo of his life and times as a scientist, Professor Frisch has revealed more about science than many authors with greater pretensions. This is a book that deserves to be read, and will be enjoyed, by a wide audience.' The Economist
'Despite his modest title, what Frisch 'manages to remember' is quite impressive. He loved to tell stories and his many vignettes of his associates … include nearly every outstanding physicist who worked in nuclear physics.' Science
'This is a happy book, from which the author's personality and his enjoyment of physics, of music, of life, emerges clearly. It is also a portrait of the pre-War world of physics, of days of small numbers and small apparatus, of times when a physicist could think of an ingenious experiment today and set it up tomorrow.' Nature
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Vienna 1904–1927; 2. Atoms; 3. Berlin 1927–1930; 4. Hamburg 1930–1933; 5. Nuclei; 6. London 1933–1934; 7. Denmark 1934–1939; 8. Denmark 1934–1939; 9. Energy from the nuclei; 10. Birmingham 1939–1940; 11. Liverpool 1940–1943; 12. Los Alamos 1943–1945; 13. Los Alamos 1943–1945; 14. Research resumed; 15. Return to England; 16. Cambridge 1947– … ; Further reading; Acknowledgements; Index.
