"In the words of Pogo, we are faced with insurmountable
opportunities," says Pais, a physicist's physicist at Rockefeller
University, as he moves to the conclusion of this majestic tour de
force: no less than a scholarly history of a century of physics - a
century in which the world of the small got infinitesimally smaller
(inward bound), while leaping to the fore to explain how microcosm
begat macrocosm. Pais appeared to have read all the primary sources
and in the original, since he provides both direct quotes and
translations of original conjectures on electrolysis or
electromagnetism (as they were first stated by a Farady or
Lorentz). Moreover, he proceeds in a style guaranteed to please
those of orderly minds: he follows the debater's principles of
stating what he's going to do; does it, and then reprises at the
end. All along, he provides footnotes and sources so that those
interested in a particular period or personality can treasure the
data assembled all in one place. The result is a book that soars.
Here, in one lengthy volume, is a landscape of physics, peopled by
the pivotal characters who were driven to understand how and why
the world works; who discovered the nature of the atom, of cosmic
forces, of special and general relativity laws (the subject of an
earlier Pais volume). Here are the Curies and Rutherford, Roentgen
and Becquereel - for starters - to be followed by Bohr and
Heisenberg, Schrodinga and Dirac, down to today's grand unified
theorists. The point is not to try to summarize what Pals is
saying, but the way he is saying it. His approach is to explain
physics as a series of conundrums and challenges; of conclusions
that are satisfactory for a while, until chaos intervenes and a new
order is necessary. In this way, he does great service to the
historian of science while at the same time paying homage to
technology; for often it is the advent of the better vacuum, the
higher energy source, that leads to the new and better explanatory
order. This is a book that begins and ends with a sense of
movement, of things yet to be queried, yet to be determined. It is
an odyssey of physics that is beautifully told and can be
appreciated at a variety of levels: from amateur (in the sense of
lover) to professional; from student to aspirant for degree. One's
only demurrer would be to have enriched the text with diagrams or
art to amplify the technological feats that Pais underscores as
pivotal in the progress of physics today. Superphysics. (Kirkus
Reviews)
The history of physics since the discovery of X-rays would be too simplistic a description of this book. Certainly it covers the historical period from the late nineteenth century to the present day, but the book attempts to relate not only what has happened over the last hundred years or so, but why it happened the way it did, what it was like for those scientists involved, and how what, at the time, seemed a series of bizarre or unrelated events, now with hindsight presents a logical narrative. The author, himself a notable physicist and author of the highly successful Subtle is the Lord (Clarendon Press 1982), was personally involved in many of the developments described in the book. As with his previous book, unique insights into the world of big and small physics are to be gained from this major work.
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