Some physicists have a passion for discovery. Peter Freund, a Romanian-born emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the University of Chicago, has a passion—and talent—for telling stories. As a physicist, he has done important work in elementary particle theory and areas of mathematical physics, including string theory. As a writer, he wants to share his fascination of the intellectual beauty of physics with a broad audience. A Passion for Discovery is organized in 28 small chapters, most of which focus on important twentieth-century physicists and mathematicians, from Albert Einstein to Edward Witten. In one of the chapters Freund takes us on a brief tour back in time, to the French mathematician Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, who in 1744 announced the famous principle of least action, later a cornerstone in quantum theory. (A detailed and recommendable account can be found in W. Yourgrau and S. Mandelstam, Variational Principles in Dynamics...
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October 2008
BOOK REVIEWS|
October 01 2008
A Passion for Discovery
A Passion for Discovery.
Peter
Freund
World Scientific
, Singapore, 2007. Price: $29.00 pb. ISBN 13-978-981-270-646-1.Am. J. Phys. 76, 982 (2008)
Article history
Received:
July 05 2008
Accepted:
July 06 2008
Citation
Helge Kragh; A Passion for Discovery . Am. J. Phys. 1 October 2008; 76 (10): 982. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.2967699
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