Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth

Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century

If science has the equivalent of a Bloomsbury group, it is the five men born at the turn of the twentieth century in Budapest: Theodore von KÃ¡rmÃ¡n, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller. From Hungary to Germany to the United States, they remained friends and continued to work together and influence each other throughout their lives. As a result, their work was integral to some of the most important scientific and political developments of the twentieth century.
IstvÃ¡n Hargittai tells the story of this remarkable group: Wigner won a Nobel Prize in theoretical physics; Szilard was the first to see that a chain reaction based on neutrons was possible, initiated the Manhattan Project, but left physics to try to restrict nuclear arms; von Neumann could solve difficult problems in his head and developed the modern computer for more complex problems; von KÃ¡rmÃ¡n became the first director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, providing the scientific basis for the U.S. Air Force; and Teller was the father of the hydrogen bomb, whose name is now synonymous with the controversial "Star Wars" initiative of the 1980s. Each was fiercely opinionated, politically active, and fought against all forms of totalitarianism.
Hargittai, as a young Hungarian physical chemist, was able to get to know some of these great men in their later years, and the depth of information and human interest in The Martians of Science is the result of his personal relationships with the subjects, their families, and their contemporaries.
Country USA
Brand Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer Oxford University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9780195365566
Model 9780195365566
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780195365566
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer	Oxford University Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9780195365566
Model	9780195365566
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780195365566
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century

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