"Ever since I began studying science,” Jeremy Bernstein writes, “I have been struck by its human characteristics. Yet in his autobiography, Einstein said that he took up science precisely as an alternative to the ‘merely personal.’ In fact there is no alternative to the ‘merely personal,’ as Einstein’s own life demonstrates.” Thus the title of Mr. Bernstein’s sparkling new collection of essays, which represent much of his work over the past ten years. When he first began writing about science for the New Yorker years ago, its editor, William Shawn, suggested that Mr. Bernstein write about science as a form of human experience. This he has been doing with great aplomb and success since 1960—his book Einstein, for example, was nominated for a National Book Award. In The Merely Personal, his essays range from an attempt to explain the quantum theory through the use of Tom Stoppard’s play Hapgood, to a critical review of recent books on Einstein. They describe Mr. Bernstein’s encounters with such people as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Bobby Fischer, and W. H. Auden. Readers will find an explanation of the origin of Newton’s contention that he stood on the shoulders of giants; a description of a surreal encounter with the logician Kurt Gödel; a discussion of computer chess; and an analysis of the attempts of the Germans to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Most of all they will find a relentlessly curious mind at work, its product conveyed in a compulsively readable style.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Although he was trained and once worked in theoretical physics, Jeremy Bernstein is best known as a longtime science writer for The New Yorker magazine, in whose pages he wrote sprawling essays on such matters as quantum mechanics, probability, and the birth of the nuclear age. The Merely Personal gathers several of his magazine pieces, many written in the last 10 years. They address the origin and history of scientific concepts, probe into the deepest workings of game theory and chess machines, and raise big questions: If German scientists had succeeded in making a nuclear weapon, would they have turned it over to the Nazi government? Is reality knowable? Does God, in fact, play dice with the universe?
The best parts of Bernstein's book, however, are those that look into the often strange lives of individual scientists, such as the mathematician Kurt Gödel, "a full-blown paranoiac" who used his isolation from the world to afford a new way of looking into logical systems, and the scientist Richard Feynman, whose "Mozartean genius in physics seemed to be combined with an almost equally Mozartean urge to play the clown." Bernstein's portraits of Einstein, Kepler, Oppenheimer, and other major scientific theoreticians and practitioners offer a bird's-eye view of how research is conducted and breakthroughs are made, all delivered in highly readable prose. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of 13 essays, some original, some previously published in the American Scholar, Commentary and elsewhere, Bernstein, a theoretical physicist and veteran writer of the "human side of science," whose Einstein was nominated for a National Book Award, sketches some of the giants of science he has encountered during his career. These include J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb and head of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton during Bernstein's time there; mathematician Kurt G”del, who slowly descended into mental illness; and the taciturn Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum theory. In writing about scientists and others, like the poets W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender, Bernstein explores the difference between "genius" and the "merely very good." In an engaging historical digression, he describes how he investigated the circumstances of a portentous meeting between two contemporary geniuses, poet John Donne and astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1619. He goes on to discuss science as a muse for writers, and then explains what Tom Stoppard--whom he admires immensely--got wrong about quantum physics in his play Hapgood. In another piece, he suggests that Isaac Newton was not in fact being humble when he said, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." For a former staff writer at the New Yorker, Bernstein is stylistically flat in many essays, although the writing perks up toward the end of the collection. Fans of scientific biographies probably won't find much they haven't already read elsewhere in his character sketches, but they will enjoy the rest, and readers without much knowledge of modern science will learn from his carefully laid-out explications of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Provides a series of lively discussions,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists (Hardcover)
This essay collection gathers writings over the past ten years, exploring a range of scientific theories, encounters with scientists, and explanations of how scientific concepts relate to everyday living. The focus on both science and scientists provides a series of lively discussions of how scientific process works.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of essays.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists (Hardcover)
This book is a collection of essays written in the style of the New Yorker magazine. Personal aspects of well-known physicists are presented. The book can be a bit dry at times, but some interesting facts are provided on these scientists. Scientists are very human!
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