Download or read book Bouquet Of Dyson A And Other Reflections On Science And Scientists written by Jeremy Bernstein and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Freeman Dyson has had an extraordinary range of interests, serious activity and influence. This is reflected in the choice of topics in these essays … This book is informative, very entertaining and well up to the high standards attained previously by this author!'Contemporary PhysicsMy 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.
Download or read book A Bouquet of Dyson Reflections on Science and Scientists written by Jeremy Bernstein and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Spaceship Orion And Other Scientific Explorations written by Jeremy Bernstein and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A curation of essays penned by Jeremy Bernstein, this book is a treasure trove of personal stories ranging from Bernstein's expedition to Mount Everest, cherished encounters with the fathers of Quantum Mechanics (Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrodinger), to a jovial collaboration with Freeman Dyson on the Orion spaceship project.This essay collection is a door into several pieces of scientific explorations as well as the celebrated life of Jeremy Bernstein, a physicist, professor and phenomenal writer. Readers will enjoy this book as both an autobiography and a popular science reading.
Download or read book Well Doc You re In written by David Kaiser and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and work of Freeman Dyson—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—and his particular way of thinking about deep questions. Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson’s roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. “Well, Doc, You’re In” (the title quotes Richard Feynman’s remark to Dyson at a physics conference) offers a fresh examination of Dyson’s life and work, exploring his particular way of thinking about deep questions that range from the nature of matter to the ultimate fate of the universe. The chapters—written by leading scientists, historians, and science journalists, including some of Dyson’s colleagues—trace Dyson’s formative years, his budding interests and curiosities, and his wide-ranging work across the natural sciences, technology, and public policy. They describe Dyson’s innovations at the intersection of quantum theory and relativity, his novel nuclear reactor design (and his never-realized idea of a spacecraft powered by nuclear weapons), his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, and his foray into cosmology. In the coda, Dyson’s daughter Esther reflects on growing up in the Dyson household. “Well, Doc, You’re In” assesses Dyson’s successes, blind spots, and influence, assembling a portrait of a scientist’s outsized legacy. Contributors Jeremy Bernstein, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Esther Dyson, George Dyson, Ann Finkbeiner, Amanda Gefter, Ashutosh Jogalekar, David Kaiser, Caleb Scharf, William Thomas
Download or read book Heisenberg s 1958 Weltformel and the Roots of Post Empirical Physics written by Alexander S. Blum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the first detailed account of Werner Heisenberg’s failed attempt to find a theory of everything in the autumn of his career. It further investigates what we can learn from his failure in relation to the search for a final theory of physics, an endeavour that continues to define research in fundamental physics to this day. Thereby it provides the first historically informed contribution to the current debate on post-empirical physics and the state of particle physics.
Download or read book Trinity written by Frank Close and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Everything about this story is astounding' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times "Trinity" was the codename for the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. Trinity is now also the extraordinary story of the bomb's metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls; his intellectual son, the atomic spy, Klaus Fuchs, and the ghosts of the security services in Britain, the USA and USSR. Against the background of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Second World War and the following Cold War, the book traces how Peierls brought Fuchs into his family and his laboratory, only to be betrayed. It describes in unprecedented detail how Fuchs became a spy, his motivations and the information he passed to his Soviet contacts, both in the UK and after he went with Peierls to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in 1944. Frank Close is himself a distinguished nuclear physicist: uniquely, the book explains the science as well as the spying. Fuchs returned to Britain in August 1946 still undetected and became central to the UK's independent effort to develop nuclear weapons. Close describes the febrile atmosphere at Harwell, the nuclear physics laboratory near Oxford, where many of the key players were quartered, and the charged relationships which developed there. He uncovers fresh evidence about the role of the crucial VENONA signals decryptions, and shows how, despite mistakes made by both MI5 and the FBI, the net gradually closed around Fuchs, building an intolerable pressure which finally cracked him. The Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear device in August 1949, far earlier than the US or UK expected. In 1951, the US Congressional Committee on Atomic Espionage concluded, 'Fuchs alone has influenced the safety of more people and accomplished greater damage than any other spy not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of nations'. This book is the most comprehensive account yet published of these events, and of the tragic figure at their centre.
Download or read book The Scientist as Rebel written by Freeman Dyson and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 33 essays on the fads and fantasies of science and scientists—including climate prediction, genetic engineering, space colonization, and paranormal phenomena—by “the iconoclastic physicist who has become one of science’s most eloquent interpreters” (New York Times) “Provocative, touching, and always surprising.” —Wired Magazine From Galileo to today’s amateur astronomers, scientists have been rebels, writes Freeman Dyson. Like artists and poets, they are free spirits who resist the restrictions their cultures impose on them. In their pursuit of nature’s truths, they are guided as much by imagination as by reason, and their greatest theories have the uniqueness and beauty of great works of art. Dyson argues that the best way to understand science is by understanding those who practice it. He tells stories of scientists at work, ranging from Isaac Newton’s absorption in physics, alchemy, theology, and politics, to Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the structure of the atom, to Albert Einstein’s stubborn hostility to the idea of black holes. His descriptions of brilliant physicists like Edward Teller and Richard Feynman are enlivened by his own reminiscences of them. He looks with a skeptical eye at fashionable scientific fads and fantasies, and speculates on the future of climate prediction, genetic engineering, the colonization of space, and the possibility that paranormal phenomena may exist yet not be scientifically verifiable. Dyson also looks beyond particular scientific questions to reflect on broader philosophical issues, such as the limits of reductionism, the morality of strategic bombing and nuclear weapons, the preservation of the environment, and the relationship between science and religion. These essays, by a distinguished physicist who is also a prolific writer, offer informed insights into the history of science and fresh perspectives on contentious current debates about science, ethics, and faith.
Download or read book The Scientist As Rebel written by Freeman Dyson and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating collection of essays by an award-winning scientist whom the London Times calls "one of the world's most original minds."From Galileo to today's amateur astronomers, scientists have been rebels, writes Freeman Dyson. Like artists and poets, they are free spirits who resist the restrictions their cultures impose on them. In their pursuit of Nature's truths, they are guided as much by imagination as by reason, and their greatest theories have the uniqueness and beauty of great works of art.Dyson argues that the best way to understand science is by understanding those who practice it. He tells stories of scientists at work, ranging from Isaac Newton's absorption in physics, alchemy, theology, and politics, to Ernest Rutherford's discovery of the structure of the atom, to Albert Einstein's stubborn hostility to the idea of black holes. His descriptions of brilliant physicists like Edward Teller and Richard Feynman are enlivened by his own reminiscences of them. He looks with a skeptical eye at fashionable scientific fads and fantasies, and speculates on the future of climate prediction, genetic engineering, the colonization of space, and the possibility that paranormal phenomena may exist yet not be scientifically verifiable.Dyson also looks beyond particular scientific questions to reflect on broader philosophical issues, such as the limits of reductionism, the morality of strategic bombing and nuclear weapons, the preservation of the environment, and the relationship between science and religion. These essays, by a distinguished physicist who is also a lovely writer, offer informed insights into the history of science and fresh perspectives on contentious current debates about science, ethics, and faith.
Download or read book Critical Reflection and the Foreign Language Classroom written by Terry Osborn and published by IAP. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces pre-service and in-service foreign language teachers to the basic concepts of critical educational study as applied to the sociological position occupied by foreign language education in the United States. Although contemporary foreign language teachers typically know about second language acquisition and instructional methodology, they are not prepared to understand issues of power in relation to, for example, language variety, language status, and education. The author addresses issues such as the supposed "failure" of foreign language education, the educational filter role played by language classes, the concept of foreignness as seen in national standards, language curricula and textbooks, and the implications of these issues in terms of power relationships and cultural mediation both in and out of the classroom. The reader is encouraged to analyze the forms of cultural struggle which can be found within the foreign language classrooms of the United States including the likely impact those struggles have on members of the dominant and subordinate cultures. Teachers are led through the development of skills in critical reflection and pedagogical application geared to social justice.
Download or read book Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society written by Freeman J. Dyson and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physicist Freeman Dyson discusses his six "heresies": The end of the United States as the top nation; Global warming, land management and climate, rising sea levels, oceans and ice ages; The wet Sahara; The domestication of biotechnology; Biological sharing and the Darwinian interlude; Rural poverty.
Download or read book Words in Blood Like Flowers written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Nietzsche claim to have "written in blood"? Why did Heidegger remain silent after World War II about his participation in the Nazi Party? How did Hölderlin's voice and the voices of other, more ancient poets come to echo in philosophy? Words in Blood, Like Flowers is a classical expression of continental philosophy that critically engages the intersection of poetry, art, music, politics, and the erotic in an exploration of the power they have over us. While focusing on three key figures—Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger—this volume covers a wide range of material, from the Ancient Greeks to the vicissitudes of the politics of our times, and approaches these and other questions within their hermeneutic and historical contexts. Working from primary texts and a wide range of scholarly sources in French, German, and English, this book is an important contribution to philosophy's most ancient quarrels not only with poetry, but also with music and erotic love.
Download or read book Birds and Frogs written by Freeman J Dyson and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-03-25 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a sequel to the volume of selected papers of Dyson up to 1990 that was published by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. The present edition comprises a collection of the most interesting writings of Freeman Dyson, all personally selected by the author, from the period 1990–2014. The five sections start off with an Introduction, followed by Talks about Science, Memoirs, Politics and History, and some Technical Papers. The most noteworthy is a lecture entitled Birds and Frogs to the American Mathematical Society that describes two kinds of mathematicians with examples from real life. Other invaluable contributions include an important tribute to C. N. Yang written for his retirement banquet at Stony Brook University, as well as a historical account of the Operational Research at RAF Bomber Command in World War II provocatively titled A Failure of Intelligence. The final section carries the open-ended question of whether any conceivable experiment could detect single gravitons to provide direct evidence of the quantization of gravity — Is a Graviton Detectable? Various possible graviton-detectors are examined. This invaluable compilation contains unpublished lectures, and surveys many topics in science, mathematics, history and politics, in which Freeman Dyson has been so active and well respected around the world.
Download or read book Dear Professor Dyson Twenty Years Of Correspondence Between Freeman Dyson And Undergraduate Students On Science Technology Society And Life written by Dwight E Neuenschwander and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freeman Dyson has designed nuclear reactors and bomb-powered spacecraft; he has studied the origins of life and the possibilities for the long-term future; he showed quantum mechanics to be consistent with electrodynamics and started cosmological eschatology; he has won international recognition for his work in science and for his work in reconciling science to religion; he has advised generals and congressional committees. An STS (Science, Technology, Society) curriculum or discussion group that engages topics such as nuclear policies, genetic technologies, environmental sustainability, the role of religion in a scientific society, and a hard look towards the future, would count itself privileged to include Professor Dyson as a class participant and mentor. In this book, STS topics are not discussed as objectified abstractions, but through personal stories.The reader is invited to observe Dyson's influence on a generation of young people as they wrestle with issues of science, technology, society, life in general and our place in the universe. The book is filled with personal anecdotes, student questions and responses, honest doubts and passions.
Download or read book Why Does the World Exist written by Jim Holt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astonishing and profound work, an irreverent sleuth traces the riddleof existence from the ancient world to modern times.
Download or read book Third Culture written by John Brockman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1996-05-07 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eye-opening look at the intellectual culture of today--in which science, not literature or philosophy, takes center stage in the debate over human nature and the nature of the universe--is certain to spark fervent intellectual debate.
Download or read book Breaking the Spell written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-02-02 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller – a “crystal-clear, constantly engaging” (Jared Diamond) exploration of the role that religious belief plays in our lives and our interactions For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why—and how—it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma. Not an antireligious screed but an unblinking look beneath the veil of orthodoxy, Breaking the Spell will be read and debated by believers and skeptics alike.
Download or read book Maker of Patterns An Autobiography Through Letters written by Freeman Dyson and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
