My friend Amit and I are longtime admirers of the early parts of 20th century that formed the Einstein era in Physics. We are certainly not unique since those decades are still considered the golden years of R&D in Physics and wax eloquently as such by many in several books and articles. So, earlier this year when he read & raved about this book titled "Encounters with Einstein And Other Essays on People, Places and Particles" by Werner Heisenberg, promptly ordered a paper copy. It is a short book of only about 140 pages and is made up of a small collection of essays, and transcription of some of his speeches. It is engaging/entertaining, particularly if you like reading about the development of physics during that time.
This version is published by Princeton Science Library, which seems to have changed the original title of the book "Tradition in Science", perhaps to cash in on Einstein's fame! Amusing. Hence the first chapter still remains the old title of the book and discusses how progress in science tends to be extremely cumulative over decades and centuries. Starting from Greek philosophers and gliding through Copernicus, Galileo, author argues that Einstein wouldn't have been a great scientist if he had lived in the twelfth century, since the building blocks needed for his work wouldn't have been available to him then. Thus, even what problems we get to work on, is quite constrained by the time/history that precedes us. In a way, it reminded me of the notion of Overton Window in social sciences.
Next two chapters delve into the development of Quantum Mechanics, particularly from Göttingen pov. It is impressive to read about all the interactions that went on between him, Neils Bohr, Pauli, Schrödinger, et al since we have heard of them only as historical legends that appear as larger than life figures in our high school physics classes. Copenhagen, Göttingen and Munich were the places where a lot of QM developments took place and they were all close to each other, allowing these researchers to exchange letters, travel to give lectures and so on. Before the age of Internet, how ideas evolved and people interacted to workout details of complex ideas is quite inspiring, that continues on the following two chapters related to elementary particle physics. The chapter actually describing his encounters with Einstein shows up only in the latter half of the book. Einstein was already a legend and so young Werner looks up to him, seeks his meeting/blessing for his ideas. But as we all know, Einstein was quite skeptical of QM and so though he invites Heisenberg to his home, has long discussions, expresses his doubts.
As the WWII was ramping up, it is sad to see him describe as to how even Einstein's Theory of Relativity was opposed by Nazi regime, including some famous physicists claiming it as a Jewish conspiracy to which no major attention should be paid. At times Einstein even avoided giving lectures due to safety concerns and the author says he was even given a red leaflet when he went to attend a lecture, approved by the Govt., saying Theory of Relativity shouldn't be trusted since because of its Jewish origin. Heisenberg says he was so upset and disturbed by that smear campaign that he got very agitated and left the lecture, without even bothering to talk to Einstein. Subsequently Einstein had relocated to Princeton in the US, where Heisenberg meets him one more time in 1954 while he was on a lecture tour in the US.
If we read up on Heisenberg himself, two kinds of images emerge. One is portraying him as a Nazi sympathizer, who worked for the regime. Other is that he is quite supportive of Jews and was against the Nazi regime, but naively thought it was just a party governing Germany for a while and will go away soon, while he continues his work in Physics. My take is the second one.
Last couple of chapters on closed theories and scientist's journey into the abstraction, though written half a century ago, still gives some interesting insights into the process of scientific evolution. On the flip side, I found the prose to be quite stuffy and stilted. It was originally written in German. I was trying to find out who translated it into English but couldn't. Perhaps the author translated it himself. Sentences like, "The empirical correlate of compactness is the internal connectedness of many experiments, that is, the knowledge that a deviation of experience from theory in one experiment would also inevitably result in such deviation in many others." is quite off-putting by today's standards.
Check it out if you are interested in this era/topic. I was looking at the cover image for a while to understand what it is. The back cover says it is "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2". Oh, yes, nice cover!! 
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On a related note, check out this trailer for a new movie coming out in July of this year:
Titled Oppenheimer, it is about the Manhattan Project. You all may know about director Christopher Nolan, who made Memento (badly copied as Gajini in Tamil/Hindi), Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, etc. He always plays with time, giving it a non-linear treatment in his scripts. He took it to an extreme in Tenet, making the movie a bit hard to follow. This trailer makes it look like the story telling is very linear in time, which is odd for him. Will have to see the movie to see how the script flows. I was also reminded of a low budget, made for TV documentary type movie on this topic titled Day One that I saw circa 1991, which was pretty good for its time.
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On an unrelated note, since it is pleasant springtime in Pennsylvania, I went on a long jog this morning listening to an episode of Heavy Networking podcast (free to download/listen under the packetpushers.net umbrella of podcasts). It talked about WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) experiences that was simultaneously entertaining and reasonably technical. Consider listening to this episode if/when you get a chance: https://packetpushers.net/podcast/heavy-networking-679-mountaintop-networking-and-long-haul-wireless/
Even if you are not a nerd/hardcore techie, you may gather some interesting stories about the impact of wild horses on communication networks, and BATMAN protocol that will be good fodder for your next family get together or team lunch! 🙂
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