Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist" is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jako Y contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...ÝThis is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age. -- Daniel J. Kevles "New York Times Book Review" --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jakob contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.
--Daniel J. Kevles (New York Times Book Review )

Night Thoughts is an interdisciplinary adventure, designed to entice the reluctant general reader into the unfamiliar terrain of physics; to lure the wary specialist out of the laboratory and away from the blackboard, into the world of fantasy...[McCormmach's] prose acquires an emotional breadth and intellectual depth seldom achieved by the novelist...An innovative and often lyrical book, written with a physicist's precision and a poet's intensity.
--Elaine Kendall (Los Angeles Times Book Review )

An extraordinary experiment in historiography...Based on impeccable and wide ranging scholarship, [McCormmach's] authoritative portrayal has the vitality and directness that only narrative affords.
--Thomas S. Kuhn

I should like to recommend [this book] to a large audience...for its charm, its intensity, and its scholarship.
--Laurie M. Brown (Science )

A brilliant piece of scholarship and a profoundly moving portrait of a man and his time.
--Peter Stoler (Time )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674624610
• ISBN-13: 978-0674624610
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #493,826 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not an easy read, but thought provoking., March 17, 1999

By	Katherine P. Sharp "TN Wildflower" (Woodbury, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Did you know that before quantum physics or atomic physics, classical physics maintained that there was a world ether through which light waves traveled? I had no idea what the struggle this old physicist was having because I did't even know that what he was losing had ever existed. However, I learned a lot, not only about the history of physics, but about a German scientist's view of science and his home land. If you would like a challenge, try this one, but don't take it to the beach.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars trapped in shifting paradigms, February 6, 2004

By	steve estvanik (seattle, wa USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Victor Jakob, an aging German physicist in 1918 faces the destruction of Germany after World War I, but even more, tries to salvage something from the realization that his life's work has been in vain. He realizes that his personal search for the world-ether has been as hopeless as the Reich's effort at domination. After a century of living with the implications of quantum mechanics and general relativity, and in a time when string theory attempts to explain it all, it's difficult to understand the unsettling options that bewildered physicists at the turn of the century
<<<<At one and the same time Jakob might be studying Helmholtz's derivation of the basic differ3ential equations of physics from a common least-action principle; Hertz's reformulation of the principles of mechanics ...; Boltzmann's universal atomism; Mach;'s phenomenological and Ostwald's energetic foundations of physical science along with their denials of atoms, forces, and mechanical explanations as the proper approach for understanding the physical world... Temporarily swept along by the vogue of viewing energy as the sole reality, he was soon brought to his senses by Planck and Boltzmann, whose writings showed him that the energists were hopelessly confused on physics and that they threatened to mislead young physicists into believing in a royal road to discovery.>>>>
An interesting analogy is given by the old physicist, which takes even greater relevance with the discoveries in superstring theory that emerged after this book was written:
<<<<They would remember that mathematical physics began with music and the Greeks, with Pythagoras. Mathematical physics long ago separated off from music but the original inspiration of music to scientific thought persisted. Without it, he told them, Kepler wouldn't have discovered the harmonies of the planetary world on which Newton's work and with it all of modern physics rested. So if they reflected on t for a moment, they would see that without music and thee exact way of thinking about the world it inspired, this physical institute wouldn't be here, and neither would he or they.>>>>
This novel is sadly lyric and brings together musings on many fundamental themes.

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of "Night thoughts...", October 8, 2009

By	Esteban Calzetta - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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I recommend this book to anybody interested in science issues, particularly if (s)he happens to be a physicist or a student of the relationships between science, technology and society. While presented as a work of fiction, the scholarship backing the text is rock solid. I myself am a physicist, and the thing that surprised me most is how debates that are usually thought as begun after WWII were well under way even before the Great War, such as the relationship of science to the state, and particularly to the state's war machine. The larger view of life in Germany during the Great War, which the reader will necessarily relate to the later rise of Hitler, is chilling.
The book also provides a warm and informed view of (now) lesser known figures, particularly Paul Drude. I believe reading this book will affect the way I teach electromagnetism and quantum physics in the future.