Einstein's theory of relativity and contributions to quantum physics are viewed in relation to his personal life and development

Einstein (Modern Masters)

Jeremy Bernstein

Biographies & Memoirs

Fontana Press

Over the years, Jeremy Bernstein has been in contact with many of the world’s most renowned physicists and other scientists, many of whom were involved in politics, literature, and language. In this diverse collection of essays, he reflects on their work, their personal relationships, their motives, and their contributions. Even for those people he writes about that he did not know personally, he provides important insights into their lives and work, and questions their character, their decisions, and the lives they led. In the first three essays, Professor Bernstein looks at economic theory and how some physicists who developed interesting economic models based on derivatives and hedge funds almost led to the country into bankruptcy. In later essays, he discusses a suspect visit to Poland by the great Heisenberg during the Nazi era, a visit that there is almost nothing written about. Included also are essays on ancient languages and a nuclear weapons program in South Africa that was supposedly dismantled. In one particularly humorous essay, he describes how an ill-conceived manned spaceship to be powered by an atomic bomb was being developed by some of the country’s most powerful intellects. The project never got off the ground. Dipping into these pages is like rummaging around in the mind of a genius who has a potpourri of interests and an abundance of fascinating experiences. Bernstein has not only rubbed elbows with some of the finest minds in world, he has worked and played with them. He has sometimes mourned with them and laughed at them. His sharp wit and even sharper analysis make for a fascinating read.

Physicists on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society

Reference

Springer

From April through December of 1945, ten of Nazi Germany's greatest nuclear physicists were detained by Allied military and intelligence services in a kind of gilded cage at Farm Hall, an English country manor near Cambridge. The physicists knew the Reich had failed to develop an atomic bomb, and they soon learned, from a BBC radio report on August 6, that the Allies had succeeded in their own efforts to create such a weapon. But what they did not know was that many of their meetings and private conversations were being monitored and recorded by British agents. This book contains the complete collection of transcripts that were made from these secret recordings, providing an unprecedented view of how the German scientists, including two Nobel Laureates, thought and spoke about their roles during the war.

Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall

History

Europe

Copernicus

One of the most respected writers on science and scientists, Jeremy Bernstein again entertains and enlightens us with this finely wrought profile of the physicist Hans Bethe, in which he examines what may well be the most important question concerning both science and public policy today--our energy resources.A Nobel laureate in physics, Bethe played a major role in building the atomic bomb. Bernstein vividly recounts Bethe's involvement in the development of nuclear power, along with the dark controversies surrounding the attack on Robert Oppenheimer during the McCarthy era and the building of the hydrogen bomb. What began as the technology of destruction has become a primary means for meeting our energy needs.The study of our energy options is the heart of the book: how much energy we will need, what it will cost, and what will be the available sources. Bernstein offers a lucid explanation of how the process of energy conversion, whether nuclear, solar, or conventional oil and coal, actually works or--in the examples of Brown's Ferry and Three Mile Island--fails to work.This book give us remarkable new insights into the energy debate in a warm, accessible style.

Prophet of Energy: Hans Bethe

Plume

Closed to the west during most of its bloody ancient history, there was little change in the remote and beautiful land-with sturdy people steeped in religious piety and ancestral ways. You are taken into an often hostile mountainous land, jungles, without doctors or electricity (from the DJ)

The Wildest Dreams of Kew: A Profile of Nepal

Asia

Simon&Schuster

Ascent: Of the Invention of Mountain Climbing and Its Practice

Another Dan Bernstein

University Of Nebraska Press

SANTA CLAUS: PRIVATE EYE

Darby Pop Publishing

September 1939: The Third Reich launches the first military research effort into the viability of producing atomic weapons. For the project, the Nazis bring together an elite team of German scientists, who call themselves "The Uranium Club." For students of World War II or the atomic age, or anyone fascinated by the intertwining of science and politics, Hitler's Uranium Club provides an opportunity rare in recorded history: the chance to eavesdrop on pivotal figures in history as they complete one era, come to terms with it, and prepare their strategy for the next. As noted science historian David Cassidy writes in his introduction, "It is as though these men were lifted out of history at a crucial turning point - from the age of conventional weapons to the nuclear era - placed within a timeless container, and told to discuss their past and future as the recorders roll."

In the Himalayas : Journeys Through Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan

Travel

Swan-Hill

My friendship with Freeman Dyson goes back over a half century. My first contact with him goes back to the late 1950s, when I was at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then evolved when I was a consultant at General Atomics in La Jolla, California. Freeman was then trying to design a space ship — the Orion — which would be propelled by atomic bombs. When I left the Institute, Freeman and I continued our correspondence and I saved his letters. They are written in an almost calligraphically elegant handwriting. It is hard to see how you could make a mistake in a mathematical computation if you wrote that clearly. The letters show his human side and his enormous range of knowledge. There are then two essays involving the physicist Fritz Houtermans who was an extraordinarily colorful character. There is a brief essay on Einstein's collaboration with a fraud. There is even an essay on the Titius-Bode law and the new exo-planets. Because of my enduring interest in nuclear weapons, the reader will find essays devoted to that. There is also a bit of fiction at the end. Readership: General public, students and academicians who are interested in issues related to science, technology and society.

BOUQUET OF DYSON, A: AND OTHER REFLECTIONS ON SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS

Science & Math

Physics

World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd

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Books by Jeremy Bernstein