Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics by John Archibald Wheeler (PDF)

Description

Winner of the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award”This delightful account is packed with insights…[Wheeler] is a consummately American physicist whose wide-ranging career spans much of a disturbing century.” —Michael Riordan, New York Times Book ReviewHe studied with Niels Bohr, taught Richard Feynman, and boned up on relativity with his friend and colleague Albert Einstein. John Archibald Wheeler’s fascinating life brings us face to face with the central characters and discoveries of modern physics. He was the first American to learn of the discovery of nuclear fission, later coined the term “black hole,” led a renaissance in gravitation physics, and helped to build Princeton University into a mecca for physicists.From nuclear physics, to quantum theory, to relativity and gravitation, Wheeler’s work has set the trajectory of research for half a century. His career has brought him into contact with the most brilliant minds of his field; Fermi, Bethe, Rabi, Teller, Oppenheimer, and Wigner are among those he called colleagues and friends. In this rich autobiography, Wheeler reveals in fascinating detail the excitement of each discovery, the character of each colleague, and the underlying passion for knowledge that drives him still.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐What a thrilling ride – courtesy of one of the giants of twentieth-century physics. John Archibald Wheeler was the quintessential gentleman-scientist. In this personal and professional autobiography, he invites us along for a ride through the physics of the 1920s through the 1990s – the period when physics came of age.This book is aimed at the non-specialist, and is written with a great deal of warmth. I expected the personal authenticity and professional attention to detail, but the warmth was the icing on the cake. Made it a real page-turner – next page, more warmth.Wheeler covers all the twentieth-century ground – after all, he was there for nearly all of it. He gives special attention to his mentor Niels Bohr and their extensive collaboration on nuclear physics; the discovery of fission; the achievement of thermonuclear reactions; his revitalization of gravitational theory, including geons, black holes, and wormholes; quantum foam; his student Hugh Everett; the universe as information; and so forth. All from a gentleman-scientist who was deeply involved in the early formulation and formalism of many of these theories.John Archibald Wheeler was both a theoretical physicist at the forefront of his field and a dreamer – dreamer in the best sense of the word. He was rock-solid on the mathematics, but that alone did not satisfy him. He also had a need to imagine and question in the fashion of Einstein – to think new thoughts, envision new possibilities, and then put them to the test of calculation.This is just plain a thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring book by a beautiful man. In this book, Wheeler is a historian who was a very essential contributor to the history he recounts. I can’t imagine a better or more exciting guide through what was truly the Golden Age of physics.

⭐“Just beyond the lived the great mathematician Hermann Weyl. His extraordinary mind was matched by a nobility of character, and I treasured our friendship. As a nineteen-year-old sitting in a Vermont meadow working my way through his opus, Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, in the original German, I could hardly have imagined that he would one day be my neighbor and friend. Like me, he learned by teaching.’’( . . . learned by teaching . . . )“He told me once that he liked to teach the history of mathematics, because only by ranging over the whole subject and its historical development could he clearly see the gaps and the places where new work would pay off in new understanding.’’‘History finds gaps’! So true!Good biography, like this excellent work, shines a light — both on one famous scientist — and twentieth century science itself. This is my favorite type of history — to find the ‘gaps’ in my understanding.Wheeler finds a nice balance between describing his scientific work, his explaining his personal life and his portraits of the numerous famous men and women he knew. For example . . .“For twenty-eight years, in Europe and in America, Bohr and Einstein debated the meaning of quantum mechanics. These two giants, full of admiration for each other, never came to agreement. Einstein refused to believe that quantum mechanics provides an acceptable view of reality, yet he could never find an inconsistency in the theory. Bohr defended the theory, yet he could never escape being troubled by its strangeness. Reportedly, once when Einstein remarked, as he liked to do, that he could not believe that God played dice, Bohr said,“Einstein, stop telling God what to do.”Great! Many, many more humorous, touching, insightful stories.Also, of course, fascinating scientific revelations . . .“I want to tell the story of my work with Dick Feynman on action at a distance because it shows the remarkable—indeed almost miraculous—power of mathematics in physics.’’( . . . mathematics as miracle . . . )“The great unifying theories of physics—the mature ones, at least—can be expressed very economically with just a few, deceptively simple equations. What flows from these equations can be quite startling, more than their discoverers imagined. One square inch of paper comfortably holds the equations of general relativity, set down by Einstein in 1915. As I write, eighty years later, new insights are still flowing from these equations. Einstein did not recognize when he first wrote them down that they predicted an expanding universe, black holes, and gravitational radiation. Yet he was quite convinced of the correctness of these equations, based as much on their elegance as their application.’’This astounding power of mathematical physics dominates modern thought. Historians, economists, psychologists and politicians all want to borrow some of Newton’s and Einstein’s glory. Too bad people have free-will while atoms don’t.1 “Hurry Up!” 2 The Manhattan Project 3. Growing Up 4. I Become a Physicist 5. I Try My Wings 6. An International Family 7. Settling Down 8. Physics after Fission 9. From Joe 1 to Mike10. The Force of Gravity11. Quantum Foam12. Nature and Nation13. The Black Hole14. Texas and the Universe15. It from Bit16. The End of TimeAnother highlight . . .“I also remember from the first grade in wartime Washington the requirement to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. My parents didn’t like the idea; they thought it came too close to religion in the school. They were liberal Protestants, with no strong church affiliation at that time. It was I who later led them to Unitarianism, when I chose to attend the Unitarian Sunday School in Youngstown. But as a first-grader, I was not one to carry my parents’ convictions into the classroom. I recited the Pledge.’’Interesting. Another. . .“Eventually, Janette and I did find a compatible worship group in Leiden, the Waldensians, tottering along on the verge of extinction. Two pastors conducted Sunday morning services, one in French and one in Dutch. Our presence swelled the congregation by a significant percentage.’’I didn’t know Waldensian churches were still existing. Fascinating. Even more so that Wheeler sought them out.Wheeler wrote this when 86. Marvelous job. Clear, touching, smooth and pleasant.The reader desiring deeper understanding of science and scientists in the twentieth century will be happy. Also, someone wanting a brief explanation of the major ideas of twentieth century physics will find them, and very well done!Additionally, the concise portraits of dozens of notable persons adds color. In fact, dozens of b/w photographs included.Wonderful!

⭐This is a very well written book. Professor Wheeler was one of those rare individuals who was both a brilliant theoretical physicist and he could write in a fluid, interesting and helpful way. This book describes his life and career with interesting descriptions of the areas of physics he worked on. He worked closely with Bohr on the development of quantum theory. He later went on to work on general relativity including black holes.

⭐It was as described thanks

⭐Having met John Wheeler on two occasions during which the topic was science, I appreciated learning more about his personal life and about his interactions with — and opinions about — other leading scientists. I had not been fully aware of his close connections with the American defence community. That is not something that I would applaud normally, but he does make a sympathetic case for his work in that area. I love reading biographies of people in areas with which I am connected, and this was one of the best.

⭐Ich hatte vor einigen Jahren das Buch “A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime” gelesen. Es ist eigentlich ein Lehrbuch zur Erklärung der allg. und spez. Relativitätstheorie.Seine Person (J. A. Wheeler) wird öfters von anderen Physikern genannt und hervorgehoben. Immer Positiv.Diese Buch nun, “Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A life in Physics” ist eine wunderbare Darstellung Wheeler’s Lebenslaufs und der Geschichte der Atomphysik und der Kosmologie.Es wird nie zu fachlich, immer von der Handlung spannend. Sehr interessant ist es, die einzelnen Physiker- Persönlichkeiten (aus aller Welt) im Spannungsfeld des 2. Weltkrieges und danach Kennenzulernen.Lehrreich und unterhaltend zugleich!Claudio Rohde

⭐

⭐I did not want this book to end. As a lay reader, I experienced Wheeler’s effort in writing this book as a generous act of sharing his insider’s perspective on events that have affected everyone. His ability to connect to lay readers and to provide explanations of a huge number of significant ideas in physics indicate a powerful pedagogical ability apparently driven by a love of physics and an understanding of its significance for non-physicists. There is a sense of respect for the learner/ reader. It is heartening when a person of his level of accomplishment places this much energy into clearly communicating with people outside the field, regardless of the potential for judgement by those within his own discourse. I think Wheeler was a scientist who cared about people as well as science, even as he was caught in a historical period of enormous controversy about the relationship of science to power and politics. I highly recommend this book as a chance to learn about physics but also to get to know Wheeler as a human being. His politics were at times conservative, while his science was not. I was astonished at the number of women in twentieth century physics, mentioned by Wheeler but largely omitted from other histories. Wheeler was very aware of the obstacles for women scientists as they struggled to make their contributions, and he was careful to include them in his story. Personally I also appreciate the idea of the geon.

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