Einstein's Genius Club: The True Story of a Group of Scientists Who Changed the World

by Burton Feldman, Katherine Williams (Introduction)

Overview

As World War II wound down and it became increasingly clear that the Allies would emerge victorious, Albert Einstein invited three close friends—all titans of contemporary science and philosophy—to his home at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, to discuss what they loved best—science and philosophy. His guests were the legendary philosopher and pacifist, Bertrand Russell; the boy wonder of quantum physics, Wolfgang Pauli; and the brilliant logician, Kurt Gödel. Their casual meetings took place far from the horrific battlefields of the war and the (then) secret lair of experimental atomic physicists in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Using these historic meetings as his launching pad, Feldman sketches the lives and contributions of the four friends, colleagues, and rivals—especially Einstein, innately self-confident but frustrated in his attempt to come up with a unified theory, and the aristocratic but self-doubting Lord Russell. Masterfully researched, this book accessibly illuminates the feelings of these notable men about the world of science that was then beginning to pass them by, and about the dawning atomic age that terrified them all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628721669
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	09/01/2011
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Burton Feldman earned his PhD
in the History of Ideas and Science at the University of Chicago. He taught at the Universities of Chicago, Maryland, Denver, Colorado at Boulder, and at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and wrote on religion and myth, literary criticism, and politics. He passed away in 2003.

Katherine Williams earned her Ph.D. from City University of New York. She chairs the English Department of New York Institute of Technology, Manhattan campus. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Glossary xvii

Part 1 The Pathos of Science

Princeton, Winter 1943-44 3

Aging Genius 7

Science and Sin 16

At Home in Princeton 17

Part 2 Four Lives

Einstein 23

Russell: Aristocrat in Turmoil 57

Gödel: Ghost of Genius 79

Pauli: The Devil's Advocate 90

Part 3 The Universe

The Logic of Paradox 115

The Mechanical World 125

Relativity of Time and Space 127

On the Quantum Path 131

The Copenhagen Interpretation 139

Einstein and Unified Theory: Chasing the Rainbow 143

The Persistence of Nature 159

Part 4 Beyond Pathos :Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, and the War

Wartime Berlin, Winter 1943-44 165

Heisenberg 167

Wartime Los Alamos, Winter 1943-44 174

Oppenheimer 181

Dangerous Knowledge: The New Security Order 187

Epilogue: The Projects of Science 191

Bibliography 199

Notes 211

Acknowledgments 231

Index 235