Customer Reviews

Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg

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This book is not for the lighthearted. It is an excellent account of the life of Werner Heisenberg and of the strong nationalism that blinsided him to the situation in Nazi Germany. His brilliance as a first rate physicist notwithstanding, the book shows by example what happens to science when it becomes totally subservient to a totalitarian regime and shows the problems of regional politics overtaken by a ruthless dictator in the funding of science. The fine line that Heisenberg walked did not diminished his scientific accomplishment but did not excuse him from his participation in a scientific enterprise that could very well have changed the course of history had it been successful, a Nazi A-bomb. The book is also a lesson on the results of elitism in science and it shows how the Nazis cheated themselves from an even greater role in nuclear physics because of their policies.

Cassidy has performed a biographical tour de force. He beautifully explicates Heisenberg's physics and all its ramifications, provides insightful portraits of Heisenberg's contemporaries and their roles in his life and work and at the same time unsentimentally analyzes Heisenberg the man. Cassidy gives us Heisenberg the genius and Heisenberg the Nazi collaborator. Yet his understanding of German culture and history is such that one comes away feeling entirely reeducated with respect to these cataclysmic events. His writing is lucid and vivid. My only criticisms are the lack of mathematical formulations- sometimes only the math can convey the principle- and his occasional failure to define more abstruse mathematical terms. Overall this is a magnificent work.

Since this book was published, a publication of Bohr's diary revealed the content of their famous meeting. Heisenberg was looking for atomic secrets after all. Cassidy could not know this, of course. His demi-hero was just a bit more tarnished than his biographer had hoped.

As the reviews in at the backcover stated, the writer deals thoroughly and fairly with the controversies surrounding this great scientist. This book gives a good overview of the man himself, his science, and the times he lived through. It is one of those works of enormous scope, that will probably not be topped. Just like the Making of the Atomic bomb or other alike tour the force works, it makes me wonder how many letters, sources, and interviews must have been worked through to make the picture come alive.

This is the definitive work on Heisenberg, and it gives also the best explanation of how the quantum Copenhagen interpretation as well as the uncertainty principle work! So it is recommended for historians, for scientists, or people who have an interest in both. Very highly recommended!

"Uncertainty" is an outstanding piece of biographical and history of science writing. The only shortcomings of the book, in my view, are: 1) the short shrift it gives to WH's life and career post-WWII; and 2) its sometimes overly abstruse exposition of WH's science. Concerning this last point, Cassidy is clearly writing for an expert (or at least highly sophisticated lay) audience. Though I got the gist of much of the specialist detail in "Uncertainty", I would have appreciated and greatly profited from some more general discussion along the way. That said, Cassidy paints the science in sufficiently broad strokes that even the non-specialist can grasp (with some effort!) something of the beauty and complexity of quantum physics. I have always been fascinated with quantum physics. Having just finished "Uncertainty" I am all the more intent on brushing up my math and doing some serious study of the discipline. Books like "Uncertainty" inspire the quest for knowledge. Cassidy is to be commended.

This book is superb as a biography and as history of Quantum Mechanics. As you read the pages you grow together with Heisenberg in his daily life and his achievements in Physics. You start to understand how the Quantum Mechanics was founded, how trial and error methods eventually developed into such a fundemental theory. The book is very voluminious but if you have patient in reading it on each line you live the life of a great man. I found it very interesting that even though he is one of the great founders of the Quantum Physics, he had more vacations than me and enjojed the life better than me. It shows that to be a good scientist you just have to carry your brain and think while wandering in the country side. Isn't it great. Apparently he did not even know Matrix Theory until Bohr showed him. Every page is full with history, science and suprise. Story is so vivid that you can even visualise the streets of Munich or other German towns as you read the book. Grat book,a lot of pages in fine print but worth of it.

Cassidy's book is simply superb. Few other biographies of scientific figures can rival this book's account of the 'figure' or the 'science'. This work is outstanding at every level. Read it and reap!

This biography of a great, adorable, sexy, and tragically flawed scientist is as dramatic as it is thorough and well narrated. As is to be expected of a good biography, the thread of the story is everywhere composed of two kinds of detail, scientific and personal, and at any point you can easily skim over the one if you prefer the other. The author has given very little room to Heisenberg's postwar life, which is why I did not give him the five-star rating. But I thank him for a job well done.

This book is surprisingly uninvolving, given the fascinating and highly provocative subject matter. The writing is uninspired and dry. I cannot recommend this as the definitive biography of Heisenberg.

A must for everyone. I would like to express my gratitude to his wife Janet for her many years of encourangement. If it was not for her would this great book have been created? Thank you Janet for the awesome book ( and i almost forgot to the author David Cassidy)