There may never be another era of science like the first half of the twentieth century, when a peerless cast of physicists—Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and others—came together to uncover the quantum world, a concept so outrageous and shocking, so contrary to traditional physics, that its own founders rebelled against it until the equations held up and fundamentally changed our understanding of reality. In propulsive, page-turning chapters, Tobias Hürter takes us back to a uniquely harrowing and momentous time, when war and revolution upended the lives of these renegade scientists, who were forced to crisscross Europe as they worked together to topple classical physics.
These tumultuous decades would also be the culmination and closing chapter of a more serendipitous—and more human—kind of research. Today, physics has principally become a practical discipline conducted at large-scale facilities. Great breakthroughs are now rarely made in the mind, or among colleagues sparring during walks on the beach, at Christmas parties, in university cafeterias, or late-into-the-night debates at conferences. Too Big for a Single Mind takes us back to this golden age of physics, when the creation of quantum theory demanded the combined efforts of friends and rivals, lovers and loners, straight-edged intellectuals and freethinking dreamers. In this stirring, grand narrative, brought to life by the letters, notes, research papers, diaries, and memoirs they wrote, we witness the birth of an idea that not only revolutionized physics and our world, but that stands as a testament to the boundless potential of genius in collaboration.
Contents:
Prologue
Paris, 1903: Cracks begin to appear
Berlin, 1900: An act of desperation
Bern, 1905: The patent serf
Paris, 1906: The decline and fall of Pierre Curie
Berlin, 1908: The end of the flying cigars
Prague, 1911: Einstein says it with flowers
Cambridge, 1911: A Dane grows up
The North Atlantic, 1912: The sinking of infallibility
Munich, 1913: A painter moves to Munich
Munich, 1914: On tour with the atom
Berlin, 1915: Good at theory, bad at relationships
Germany, 1916: War and peace
Berlin, 1917: Einstein breaks down
Berlin, 1918: Pandemic
The Caribbean, 1919: The moon obscures the sun
Munich, 1919: A young man reads Plato
Berlin, 1920: Great minds meet
Göttingen, 1922: A son finds his father
Munich, 1923: A high-flier almost crashes
Copenhagen, 1923: Bohr and Einstein take the tram
Copenhagen, 1924: One last try
Paris, 1924: A prince makes atoms sing
Heligoland, 1925: The vastness of the sea and the tininess of atoms
Cambridge, 1925: The quiet genius
Leiden, 1925: The prophet of spin
Arosa, 1925: A late erotic outburst
Copenhagen, 1926: Waves and particles
Berlin, 1926: A visit with the demigods
Berlin, 1926: The Plancks throw a party
Göttingen, 1926: The abolition of reality
Munich, 1926: A turf war
Copenhagen, 1926: Exquisitely carved marble statues falling out of the sky
Copenhagen, 1926: A game with sharpened knives
Copenhagen, 1927: The world goes fuzzy
Como, 1927: Dress rehearsal
Brussels, 1927: The great debate
Berlin, 1930: Germany flourishes, Einstein falls ill
Brussels, 1930: K.O. in the second round
Zurich, 1931: Pauli's dreams
Copenhagen, 1932: Faust in Copenhagen
Berlin, 1933: Some flee, some stay
Amsterdam, 1933: A sad end
Oxford, 1935: The cat that isn't there
Princeton, 1935: Einstein puts the world back in focus
Garmisch, 1935: Dirty snow
Moscow, 1937: On the other side
Berlin, 1938: Bursting nuclei
The Atlantic, 1939: Terrible news
Copenhagen, 1941: Estrangement
Berlin, 1942: No bomb for Hitler
Stockholm, 1943: Flight
Princeton, 1943: Einstein mellows
England, 1945: The impact of the explosion
Epilogue
Index
