6 ms·
Von Neumann, Einstein, Morgenstern, Morse and Lefschetz (1952)
- Jenny8090 5y ago[dead]
- nvalis 5y agoI have no idea why, but it is always interesting and inspiring to read about how known figures of historic interest were related to each other and how their (normally seperatly told) stories intertwined. Thanks!
- lehmannerich 5y agoA great post on that: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/01/horizontal-history.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/01/horizontal-history.html
- nvalis 5y agoThat was an interesting read, thank you.
- jo_in_europe 5y agoI've read a handful of biographies of 20th century physicists recently, which I enjoyed for the same reasons. Ulam was a Los Alamos mathematician (and a great friend of Von Neumann). Anderson discovered the meson, which Yukawa had predicted. Fritzsche named nuclear fission (after doing important work on it). Elasser was a wandering scientist, who (to me) seemed to be "on the outside of the inside"; he gives accounts of his dealings with most of the atomic era players. - Adventures of a Mathematician (Ulam) - What Little I Remember (Frisch) - Memoirs of a Physicist in the Atomic Age (Elasser) - The Traveller (Yukawa) - Discovery of Anti-Matter (Carl Anderson) Also Freeman Dyson's and Feynman's stuff. I'm ever open to recommendations from readers who enjoy the same stuff.
- fgh 5y agoIf you are also a little bit interested in philosophy, Heisenberg's "Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations" is a wonderful recommendation.
- fgh 5y agoForgot to mention another book: Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science. A really beautiful book with lots of photographies of all members of the Vienna circle and what happened to them. Some parts, of course, are also about Gödel.
- gww 5y agoIf you haven't read it The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is in the same vein and excellent. It doesn't focus on a single physicist but covers a lot of the physics and chemistry that led to the construction of the atomic bomb.
- Trex_Egg 5y agoThanks for the details
- brummm 5y agoIf you are a physicist, Abraham Pais' "Subtle is the Lord" about Einstein's accomplishments in physics is an absolutely unique and amazing book. However, I didn't ask if you are a physicist for no reason. It talks mainly about the science and not about Einstein's personal life and you will need a physics education to follow along.
- edge17 5y agoThanks for the recommendations, I do read a lot of biographies and find the overlap of the stories of these important people to be particularly interesting. Some good ones I have read: - American Prometheus - About J. Robert Oppenheimer's life. Lots of stories of lots of scientists and politicians, bureaucrats, etc throughout his life. - Benjamin Franklin's autobiography - Wasn't a great book, but towards the end made mention that he wanted to meet Issac Newton when he went to England on some government business. Until reading it, I hadn't realized they were contemporaries. - Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson - Lots of stories with people well known inside the technology industry.
- mudita 5y agoYou might like this story about Freeman Dyson and Richard Feynman having a road trip: https://youtu.be/1Rr3ZWt1ULQ https://youtu.be/1Rr3ZWt1ULQ (the whole interview is very interesting and contains a lot of stories of meeting other physicists and mathematicians, it’s broken up into a series of snippets of a few minutes each on youtube) In the end this trip lead to one of Dyson’s biggest contributions to physics, he could talk to Feynman about his research on the road trip and visited Schwinger afterwards and as such was in a unique position to recognise and formalise the equivalence of Feynman’s, Schwinger’s and Tomanaga's formulations of quantum electrodynamics. This was an important step towards the acceptance of Feynman diagrams. I also really liked "Maker of Patterns”, Dyson’s autobiography through letters.
- vmchale 5y agoI had no idea either - Gödel's was extremely mentally ill, didn't realize how long it was.
- dang 5y agoEinstein isn't wearing jeans there is he? It looks like he might be, but I assume 1952 was much too early for that.
- raxxorrax 5y agoProbably some form of cloth pants. Stylish though, definitely works with that haircut.
- nvalis 5y agoWhat makes you think it's denim? I would say it looks quite similar to the trousers the others are wearing (especially the ones of Whitney Oates). Solely going by the timeline described in [0] it's rather unlikely that these are denim. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17101768 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17101768
- privatdozent 5y agoThe photograph has been artificially colourized. Original here: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26078/lot/22/ https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26078/lot/22/
- tagoregrtst 5y agoThis is why I despise artificial coloration. Its fine as a filter I can privately turn on to delude myself. But when the pictures spread it reinforced our modern biases in the past
- dang 5y agoAh, that's certainly what did it. Thanks!
- paganel 5y ago[flagged]
- yokoprime 5y agoCherry picking some facts to build up your narrative is indeed cynical, yes. You could similarily point out that none are wearing shorts or sandals.
- paganel 5y ago
- jo_in_europe 5y agoI understand about shorts, but it's not offensive to compare ethnicity with sandals.
- throw-8462682 5y ago> I know this is a cynic take, It’s worse than that. This take is a trivial restatement of history, namely that whites and men had most of the power, while amplifying outrage with people already agreeing with you, not contributing to lessening the divide, and causing people like myself to self censor by replying using throwaway accounts.
- paganel 5y ago
- throw-8462682 5y ago> started "idolising" past scientists [..] whose primary purpose on life had become, basically, how to best kill other people We all should be careful to judge people in history with our current set of morals. The scientists in the photo all experienced the horrors of WWII. I don’t think it requires to much mental gymnastics to have the position that the deterrence of nuclear weapons would lead to a safer world, especially in the post WWII context. Note that this is not a blanket statement against judging people in history. I just don’t think this applies to the scientists here.
- lincpa 5y ago
- ArtWomb 5y agoJust stumbled upon an interview with Robert Oppenheimer where he discusses the creative culture at IAS circa mid-1950s. Under 100 fellows at the time, but spanning the spectrum from George Kennen to Niels Bohr. Sacred grounds ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSG_G5CVVlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSG_G5CVVlM
- publicola1990 5y agoIs it Yevegny Lifshetz?
- throwaway81523 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Lefschetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Lefschetz I believe.
- mjreacher 5y agoOn the topic of von Neumann and Solomon Lefschetz, a while back I saw a documentary about Paul Halmos that discussed them, unfortunately it seems to have been removed for copyright but the trailer is still accessible [0]. The gist of what he said was that while he admired von Neumann greatly, particularly for his incredible speed and clarity of understanding, sometimes he felt a greater respect and closeness for Lefschetz, who lost both of his hands in an industrial accident and despite saying that Lefschetz's style of thinking was 'incredibly confused' in the sense he [Lefschetz] didn't have a full understanding of what he himself [Lefschetz] was thinking, he wanted to get to know him more. More evidence comes from a quote of J. Barkley Rosser which goes as follows [1]: "If Church said it's obvious, then everybody saw it a half hour ago. If Weyl says it's obvious, von Neumann can prove it. If Lefschetz says it's obvious, it's false." He also notes unlike Lefschetz von Neumann was not considered by some mathematicians to be a great mathematician because there wasn't one big thing or field that he became the best in the world at or contributed the most too, noting that in mathematics he would likely be best remembered for his work in rings of operators (now known as von Neumann algebras). This lines up with several other stories I've read in math history where many considered much of von Neumann's work past the 1940s (where he was working primarily in applied mathematics and other applied fields) a waste of his talent. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONvYPldXoZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONvYPldXoZs [1]: https://web.math.princeton.edu/oral-history/c21.pdf https://web.math.princeton.edu/oral-history/c21.pdf
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]