The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery of Twentieth-century Physicists

Oxford University Press, 2000 8vo (24 cm), VI, 356 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket. "the author offers us insightful portraits of twelve of our century's most distinguished physicists, all of whom he has known personally. We meet, among others, the famously taciturn Paul Dirac; Max Born, who coined the term 'quantum mechanics'; Wolfgang Pauli, famed for his exclusion principle and known as the conscience of twentieth-century physics; Mitchell Feigenbaum, inventor of chaos theory; and John von Neumann, one of the most influential mathematicians of the century. Other scientists profiled include Res Jost, Isidor Rabi, Viktor Weisskopf, and Eugene Wigner. In addition, because their work is so relevant to the others discussed, Pais has included chapters on Einstein and Bohr, in each case giving the essence of the man's character and scientific achievement." (from the publisher's description)