by James Gleick
cat, 243
Schrödinger equation, 73, 88–89, 102, 129, 146–47, 174, 249, 301, 436
Schweber, Silvan S., 348, 386–87
Schwinger, Julian, 158, 215–16, 227, 243, 295, 309, 395
childhood, 48–49
early papers, 48–49
Feynman and, 16, 49, 252, 377–79
Nobel Prize, 377–79
at Pocono, 5–6, 255–58
quantum electrodynamics and, 239, 241, 251–53, 255–63, 266–69, 271, 275–77, 279–80, 321, 347, 367
at Shelter Island, 233–34
students, 276–77, 378
science
as career, 52–53
creativity in, 314, 321, 324–26, 409
experimental attitude, 14–16, 19
explanation in, 29
laws of, 13–14
military financing of, 4, 209–11, 294–95, 385
religion and, 31–32, 58–60
Science, 145
science fiction, 121, 235, 255, 299
Scientific American, 104, 414
scientists
aging of, 347
as children, 17, 19
as craftsmen, 321–22
as nerds, 44, 63
patriotism of, 137
public view of, 40–42, 44, 203
Scobee, Francis, 415–16
Segrè, Emilio, 198–99
seismology, 281–82
Selective Service, 222–25, 297
Serber, Robert, 163, 168–69, 173
sexual politics, 287–91,411–12
Shaaray Tefila, 23
Shakespeare, William, 313, 314, 317, 325, 328
Shelter Island conference (1948), 232–34
Shockley, William, 85, 137
Siegel, Carl Ludwig, 98
simplicity, see nature, simplicity in
Sitwell, Edith, 106
Slater, John C, 40, 53–55, 67–68, 83–91, 94, 301, 366
Slotin, Louis, 196–97
Slotnick, Murray, 270–72, 282
Smith, Lloyd, 263
Smith, Michael, 415
Smyth, Harry D., 84, 137, 140, 144, 149–50, 164, 227
Snow, C. P., 9–10
solid-state physics, see physics
Sommerfeld, Arnold, 166
South Pacific, 308
Soviet Academy of Science, 297–98
Soviet Union, 6, 191, 278, 296–98, 340–41
space, generalized conceptions of, 76, 507
space shuttle, see Challenger
space travel, 218–19, 340–41, 374, 414–28
space-time, 7, 74, 109, 124, 152, 246–49, 255, 272–75, 355, 351, 354
world-lines in, 121–22
spectroscopy, 55, 85, 254
Spellbound (Hitchcock), 225
spin, 75, 80, 99, 228–51, 240, 242, 282, 350, 356–57, 375, 399
Sputnik, 340–41,414
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), 391–95
Stanwyck, Barbara, 44
State Department, United States, 285, 298, 341
Stone, Arthur, 104
strangeness, 509–10, 360
Stratton, Julius A., 55, 55–56
Strauss, Lewis L., 295–96
streptomycin, 195–96
string theory, 455
stroboscope, 77
strong interaction, 507, 509–10, 350, 354, 392–95
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn), 521–22
Stückelberg, Ernst, 272–75
SU(3), 387, 389–91, 455–54
Sudarshan, E. C. C, 357–58, 411
superconductivity, 299–505
superfluidity, 9, 298–505
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 11, 409–11
surface tension, 501
Sykes, Christopher, 369
symmetry, 258, 255, 506, 509–10, 361
breaking, 389–90, 452, 455
isospin, 506
left-right, 506, 350–55, 358–40
spin, 229
time, 111–14, 118–20
Szilard, Leo, 156, 160
technology
attitudes toward, 41, 257, 406, 416
influence on theory, 41, 71, 108, 124
telescope, 27, 77, 120, 281, 284–85
television, 45, 47, 520, 346, 372, 416
Teller, Edward, 255, 255
cold war and, 341
Feynman and, 6–7, 157, 224–25
Hungarian conspiracy, 136
hydrogen bomb, 204, 258, 296
at Los Alamos, 166–69, 175, 197–98
Oppenheimer and, 166–69, 296
Schwinger and, 216
at Trinity, 153
Tetrode, H., 120
Theory of Fundamental Processes, 12
thermodynamics, 88, 126, 174, 355, 361, 365
Thinking Machines Corporation, 454
Thomson, J. J., 42–45
Thome, Kip S., 404
thought experiment, 107–8, 245, 247–49, 355
3M Company, 406
Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 416
time
philosophy of, 109, 125–28
reversibility, 7, 82, 108–12, 118–20, 125, 255–54, 258, 272–74
Time, 379
Time-Life Films, 407
Tiomno, Jayme, 278
Tokyo University, 260
Tolman, Richard, 144
Tomonaga, Shin’ichiro, 259–61, 267, 377–579
Townsend Harris High School (New York), 48
Treasure Island (Stevenson), 65
triboluminescence, 285
Trinity test, 6, 65–66, 155–57, 205
Truman, Harry S, 209
tuberculosis, 155–55, 149–50, 194–96
Tübingen, University of, 167
Tuck, Helen, 385
Tuckerman, Bryant, 104
Tukey, John, 104–5
turbulence, 9, 298, 502, 450–51, 454, 436
UCLA Medical Center, 405, 457–58
UFO’s, 375–74
Ulam, Stanislaw, 155, 168, 437
uncertainty
in computation, 175–74
of knowledge, 5, 15, 29, 67, 126, 195, 285, 371–75, 438
in quantum mechanics, 8, 70, 72–73, 75, 78, 89, 258, 321, 361, 429–30, 435
Union Carbide, 141
unitarity, 7, 258
United Nations, 339
uranium
atom, 94–95
bomb design, 170–72
critical mass calculations, 168–69
diffusion in, 169–73
hydride, 173
isotope separation, 136, 139–46
practical uses, 218–19
predetonation of, 6, 168–69
radiation danger, 195–200
reactors, 157–58, 161–65
Urey, Harold, 144
V-A theory, see weak interaction
Vallarta, Manuel S., 81–82, 215
Verne, Jules, 235
Vinogradov, I. M., 236
visualization, see physics, visualization in
V-particles, 309–10
Watson, James, 349, 386–87
wave-particle duality, 7, 18–19, 40, 54, 80, 250, 261–62
weak interaction, 9, 309–10, 330, 334–39
Wegener, Alfred, 321
Weinberg, Steven, 101, 348, 404, 431, 435
Weiner, Charles, 409
Weisskopf, Victor, 66–67, 167–69, 175, 185, 203, 232, 241, 251–53, 309, 330, 334, 352, 382–83, 403
Welton, Theodore (T. A.), 51–52, 56, 73–79, 169–71, 173, 183, 228, 325–26
Wentzel, Gregor, 272
Weyl, Hermann, 18, 52
What Do You Care What Other People Think?, 11
Wheeler, John Archibald, 93–96, 102, 124–25, 141, 146, 233, 255, 258–59
Feynman and, 96, 98–99, 106, 108, 116, 130, 147, 148, 250, 362, 380
fission and, 94–95, 139
Wheeler-Feynman electrodynamics, 110–15, 117–29, 147, 215, 246, 253–54, 278, 333, 381
<
br /> Whitehead, Alfred North, 366
Whitman, Walt, 319
Whitney, Eli, 319
Wiener, Norbert, 172
Wigner, Eugene, 53, 94, 96, 114–15, 116, 117, 130–31, 136, 137, 144, 146, 148, 184
Wilbur, Richard, 37
Williams, Ted, 327
Wills, A. P., 56
Wilson, Robert R.
at Cornell, 226–27
Feynman and, 130, 139–40
isotron, 141–44, 157–58, 160
in Manhattan Project, 136–37, 156, 208
on modern physics, 209–10
Wheeler and, 93–94
Wisconsin State Journal, 43–44
Wolfe, Thomas, 84
Wolfe, Tom, 407
World’s Fair, 40–41, 260
World War I, 77
World War II, 3–4, 84, 128, 237–38
aftermath, 208
scientists’ preparations for, 136–38
Wu, Chien Shiung, 334–35, 337
W. W. Norton and Company, 411
X rays, 18, 55, 99, 133
Yale lock, 15, 188, 297
Yale University, 46, 97, 225, 300–301, 308
Yang, Chen Ning, 333–34, 336–37
Yang-Mills theory, 329, 353, 387
Yeager, Chuck, 417
Yukawa, Hideki, 259–60, 282
Zeitschrift für Physik, 120
Zeleny, John, 44–45
Ziman, John, 371
Zweig, George, 390–91, 394, 396
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustration 1—courtesy of the American Institute of Physics; Illustration 2—Robin Brickman; Illustration 3—Gardner 1989; Illustration 4—Robin Brickman; Illustration 5—Wheeler and Feynman 1945; Illustration 6—courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology; Illustration 7—Victor Weisskopf and E. Wigner, “Berechnung der natürlichen Linienbreite auf Grund der Diracschen Lichttheorie,” Zeitschrift für Physik 63 (1930); Illustration 8—Robin Brickman; Illustration 9—Robin Brickman; Illustration 10—Dyson 1949a; Illustration 11—Stückelberg 1941; Illustration 12—Feynman 1949b; Illustration 13—Feynman 1949b; Illustration 14—Cvitanović 1983; Illustration 15—Feynman 1985a.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Image 1—courtesy Joan Feynman; Image 2, top—courtesy Joan Feynman; Image 3, bottom—courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 4—courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 5—Los Alamos Scientific Library, courtesy AIP Niels Bohr Library; Image 6—Los Alamos Scientific Library, courtesy AIP Niels Bohr Library; Image 7, top—S. A. Goudsmit, courtesy AIP Niels Bohr Library; Image 8, bottom—AIP Niels Bohr Library; Image 9, top—AIP Niels Bohr Library, Marshak Collection; Image 10, bottom—AIP Niels Bohr Library, Physics Today Collection; Image 11, top—Richard Hartt Photography, courtesy of Caltech; Image 12, bottom—AIP Niels Bohr Library
Image 13, top—AIP Niels Bohr Library, Physics Today Collection; Image 14, bottom—Joe Munroe, courtesy of Caltech; Image 15—courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology; Image 16, top—UPI/Bettmann; Image 17, bottom—courtesy Gweneth Feynman; Image 18-19, top and bottom—courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 20, top—courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 21, bottom—Consulate General of Japan, N.Y., courtesy AIP Niels Bohr Library; Image 22, top—courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 23, bottom—Robert Walker, courtesy Michelle Feynman; Image 24-25, top and bottom—courtesy of Caltech; Image 26—UPI/Bettmann.
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
British Broadcasting Corporation: Excerpt from” Fun to Imagine,” an interview between Richard Feynman and Christopher Sykes as broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1983. Used by permission.
David Higham Associates: Four lines from “Tattered Serenade,” from Collected Poems by Edith Sitwell, published by Macmillan London. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates.
copyright © 1992 by James Gleick
cover design by Milan Bozic
cover image courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1046-8
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
FAR ROCKAWAY
Neither Country nor City
A Birth and a Death
It’s Worth It
At School
All Things Are Made of Atoms
A Century of Progress
Richard and Julian
MIT
The Best Path
Socializing the Engineer
The Newest Physics
Shop Men
Feynman of Course Is Jewish
Forces in Molecules
I s He Good Enough?
PRINCETON
A Quaint Ceremonious Village
Folds and Rhythms
Forward or Backward?
The Reasonable Man
Mr. X and the Nature of Time
Least Action in Quantum Mechanics
The Aura
The White Plague
Preparing for War
The Manhattan Project
Finishing Up
LOS ALAMOS
The Man Comes In with His Briefcase
Chain Reactions
The Battleship and the Mosquito Boat
Diffusion
Computing by Brain
Computing by Machine
Fenced In
The Last Springtime
False Hopes
Nuclear Fear
I Will Bide My Time
We Scientists Are Clever
CORNELL
The University at Peace
Phenomena Complex—Laws Simple
They All Seem Ashes
Around a Mental Block
Shrinking the Infinities
Dyson
A Half-Assedly Thought-Out Pictorial Semi-Vision Thing
Schwinger’s Glory
My Machines Came from Too Far Away
There Was Also Presented (by Feynman) …
Cross-Country with Freeman Dyson
Oppenheimer’s Surrender
Dyson Graphs, Feynman Diagrams
Away to a Fabulous Land
CALTECH
Faker from Copacabana
Alas, the Love of Women!
Onward with Physics
A Quantum Liquid
New Particles, New Language
Murray
In Search of Genius
Weak Interactions
Toward a Domestic Life
From QED to Genetics
Ghosts and Worms
Room at the Bottom
All His Knowledge
The Explorers and the Tourists
The Swedish Prize
Quarks and Partons
Teaching the Young
Do You Think You Can Last On Forever?
Surely You’re Joking!
A Disaster of Technology
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
A FEYNMAN BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
.