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100			_a20130301 frey50
101			_aeng
102			_b??
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200			_aEinstein and oppenheimer _ethe meaning of genius _fSilvan S. Schweber. _bLIVR
210			_acambridge _aLondon _cHarvard University Press _d2010
215			_a412 p. _d23 cm
300	0		_aAlbert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed—in their worldview, in their work, and in their day—this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times. In Einstein’s and Oppenheimer’s philosophical and ethical positions, their views of nuclear weapons, their ethnic and cultural commitments, their opinions on the unification of physics, even the role of Buddhist detachment in their thinking, the book traces the broader issues that have shaped science and the world. Einstein is invariably seen as a lone and singular genius, while Oppenheimer is generally viewed in a particular scientific, political, and historical context. Silvan Schweber considers the circumstances behind this perception, in Einstein’s coherent and consistent self-image, and its relation to his singular vision of the world, and in Oppenheimer’s contrasting lack of certainty and related non-belief in a unitary, ultimate theory. Of greater importance, perhaps, is the role that timing and chance seem to have played in the two scientists’ contrasting characters and accomplishments—with Einstein’s having the advantage of maturing at a propitious time for theoretical physics, when the Newtonian framework was showing weaknesses. Bringing to light little-examined aspects of these lives, Schweber expands our understanding of two great figures of twentieth-century physics—but also our sense of what such greatness means, in personal, scientific, and cultural terms.
606			_a1900 - 1999 _2lc
606			_aEinstein, Albert, 1879-1955 _2lc
606			_aOppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967 _2lc
606			_aPhysicists--Psychology _2lc
606			_aScience _2lc
676			_a530.0922 _zeng
700		1	_aSchweber, _bSilvan S. _92590
720			_4070
721			_4070
722			_4070
801		0	_aUS _bDCLC _gAACR2 _c19130301