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Re: Weimar Republic





Hi all,

I have a very bright student who needs to do a paper for me and she is
interested in the beginnings of modern QM and in particular the social
atmosphere around people like Heisenburg and Schrodinger.

Anybody have any ideas where she could start on something like that?

David Emigh

I would suggest several books:

The first three are directly relevant with lots of useful information about
the social climate of the early thirties.

1. Schroedinger: Life and Thought, by Walter Moore (Cambridge UP, 1989,
ISBN: 0-521-35434-X)
2. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg, by David Cassidy
(Freeman, 1992, ISBN: 0-7167-2243-7)
3. Inward Bound, by Abraham Pais (Oxford UP, 1986, ISBN: 0-19-851971-0)

These two give useful background about the general scientific and social
situation in Germany in the thirties.

4. Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the
Bomb, by William Lanouette (Scribners, 1992, ISBN:0-684-19011-7)
5. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes (Simon & Schuster,
1986, ISBN: 0-671-65719-4)

All five give quite a bit about the science and a good deal about the
cultural and social climate of the times and shuld be at least a good
start. There are lots of very good books written on that period, so she
should limit her efforts to just these five, but they will get her started.
There are good scholarly biographies about almost all of the leading
scientists of those times and they would be the best place to start looking
for additional information.

One caution; although I enjoyed the biography of Szilard, some of the
conclusions presented there should be taken with a grain of salt. The
author has been criticized for taking too much of his material from
interviews with Szilard's brother, who may not have been the most reliable
possible source.

Good luck.

Hugh



Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
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