Volume 38, Number 15 · September 26, 1991
King of the Quantum
By Jeremy Bernstein
Niels Bohr's Times, In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity
by Abraham Pais
Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 565 pp., $30.00
As Abraham Pais makes clear in his careful study, many of the scientists who encountered Niels Bohr even briefly came away with a remarkable impression. My own took place in 1958, when new elementary particles were appearing, in a bewildering profusion, from both cosmic rays and accelerator experiments. These were pre-quark days, so there was no theoretical model within which to fit this unexpected data. Things were so desperate that J. Robert Oppenheimer—I think he was kidding—suggested that a Nobel-like prize be given to an experimental physicist who did not discover a new particle.
Review, 3530 words
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