Physicists on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society 2008th Edition by Jeremy Bernstein (PDF)

Description

Over the years, Jeremy Bernstein has been in contact with many of the world’s most renowned physicists and other scientists, many of whom were involved in politics, literature, and language. In this diverse collection of essays, he reflects on their work, their personal relationships, their motives, and their contributions. Even for those people he writes about that he did not know personally, he provides important insights into their lives and work, and questions their character, their decisions, and the lives they led.In the first three essays, Professor Bernstein looks at economic theory and how some physicists who developed interesting economic models based on derivatives and hedge funds almost led to the country into bankruptcy. In later essays, he discusses a suspect visit to Poland by the great Heisenberg during the Nazi era, a visit that there is almost nothing written about.Included also are essays on ancient languages and a nuclear weapons program in South Africa that was supposedly dismantled. In one particularly humorous essay, he describes how an ill-conceived manned spaceship to be powered by an atomic bomb was being developed by some of the country’s most powerful intellects. The project never got off the ground.Dipping into these pages is like rummaging around in the mind of a genius who has a potpourri of interests and an abundance of fascinating experiences. Bernstein has not only rubbed elbows with some of the finest minds in world, he has worked and played with them. He has sometimes mourned with them and laughed at them. His sharp wit and even sharper analysis make for a fascinating read.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐I am disappointed to find NO essay, “Physicists on Wall Street,” in this dense little tome. Perhaps I will return it. Yes, there is at least one essay buried in the book that looks related to the title essay; but the book’s title certainly qualifies it as a ‘bait and switch’.

⭐The other reviewer is right about there not being an essay with the title “Physicists On Wall Street” but there are a bunch of essays that can arguably be said to constitute the theme. Ignoring this minor quibble and the typos existent due to inadequate editing, this is an entertaining book in the same vein as the author’s “The Merely Personal”, you can dip into it for pleasurable reading on science and scientists. The chapters on linguists and Ventris who deciphered linear B were a revelation, I assumed that I would never read those parts of the book but I was pleasantly surprised. All in all a nice potpourri of topics for a rainy night written in the signature Bernstein style.I wish the author had picked another publisher and not Springer, the academic publishing house which clearly has no clue how to price a book like this.

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