the human stress of theory

It’s worth remembering that theorists in various fields get into conflicts for reasons that aren’t at all “petty.” The great theorists are rarely Spocks.

Consider the following example, which I take from a nice book I will describe below. The conflict in question took place in March 1927 between two good friends, Bohr and Heisenberg– with Bohr defending complementarity and Heisenberg defending his own interpretation of the uncertainty principle.

“Heisenberg stubbornly refused to yield… Young Swedish physicist Oskar Klein, recently arrived in Copenhagen on a visiting fellowship, was drawn into the argument. He took Bohr’s side and, as can often happen in such super-heated circumstances, the argument became bitter and personal.

Their conflict was ‘very disagreeable,’ Heisenberg later admitted. ‘I remember that it ended with my breaking out in tears because I just couldn’t stand the pressure from Bohr.’ Heisenberg in his turn uttered regrettable statements, meant only to wound. Bohr sent a plea for help to [Wolfgang] Pauli and even offered to pay his travel expenses to Copenhagen. But Pauli was unavailable.”

The passage comes from pages 100-1 of the wonderful The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments, by Jim Baggott (an Oxford University Press book from 2011). Amazon page HERE.

I’ve read a number of histories of 20th century physics, as many people have; they’re pretty irresistible. But Baggott comes up with quite a number of stories I’d never heard.

His approach is also unusual. As the subtitle states, it’s 40 isolated moments. That’s enough to give a pretty good narrative of what happened, though the effect is still a bit jumpy.

This is also a book that packages itself as a history for the layperson, but it’s also pitched at the professional, and Baggott is willing to go over your head at times. It doesn’t matter so much, because the layperson is able to get the gist of everything.

I saw a book review or article somewhere recently, perhaps a review of this very book, claiming that Roger Penrose does the same thing– pretends to be writing books for the layperson while actually intending to address his colleagues all along.

Books for the layperson are something that the natural sciences have generally been doing better than philosophy recently.

In any case, if you enjoy histories of 20th century science, this is yet another book that you will like. There are a lot of very good ones out there.

But you know what I think is the very best history of all on the topic? The first part of Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. If you want a book that brings Thomson, Rutherford, Bohr, Marie Curie, Fermi (wonderful!), and all such people to life, this is your book. (Not so much on Einstein, but there are plenty of places to find that story.)