Volume 33, Number 18 · November 20, 1986
Conservative Revolutionary
By Rudolf Peierls
The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science
by J.L. Heilbron
University of California Press, 238 pp., $16.95
The title of John Heilbron's biography of the physicist Max Planck, The Dilemmas of an Upright Man, is well chosen. The chief characteristics of Planck were his integrity, his feeling for tradition, and his sense of duty. Yet throughout his adult life he faced conflicts, some of which involved reversing a stand he had taken on matters of principle; in other cases he pursued a futile struggle against inevitable disasters. Heilbron gives a very readable, and very balanced, account of the successes and disasters of this great physicist, without attempting to pass judgment. But the character of the man comes clearly through the narrative.
Review, 2629 words
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