Podcast Interview with Peter Freund (1,402k)

This fascinating book assembles human stories about physicists and mathematicians. Remarkably, these stories cluster around some general themes having to do with the interaction between scientists, and with the impact of historic events — such as the advent of fascism and communism in the twentieth century — on scientists’ behavior. Briefly, but lucidly, some of the beautiful science that brought these scientists together in the first place is explained.

Author's webpage: http://freund9.googlepages.com/peterfreundwritings

Contents:

• Einstein Once Removed
• The Conscience of Physics
• The Language of God
• Oswald Teichmüller and Nazi Science
• Scientists in Politics
• Jews in Science. The Backlash
• Stalin and the Quantum
• Oppenheimer, Hero or Antihero?
• On and Off the Map: Romanian Mathematics
• A Brief History of Space
• as well as chapters on Richard Feynman, E C G Stueckelberg, Emmy Noether, Andrei Sakharov, and others

“Like the author, these stories are full of wisdom, wit and humor. Sometimes they are hilarious and sometimes tragic. They need to be told, and I suspect that Peter Freund is the only one who can tell them.”

“Freund is at his best when he focuses on one, perhaps two, scientists in each chapter … Throughout his long career, Freund has obviously met many influential scientists and collected many fascinating stories about them and their colleagues.”

“Can there be a common endeavour, whether physics or poetry, that can remain objective when the researchers involved are also people? According to Peter Freund, one of the founding physicists of String Theory, in his book “A Passion for Discovery,” the answer is Yes and No … Poetry esthetics might seem a lot less imposing than theoretical physics, but it isn’t. Outlandish humans make both.”