Physicists on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society

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Over the years, Jeremy Bernstein has been in contact with many of the world’s most renowned physicists and other scientists, many of whom were involved in politics, literature, and language. In this diverse collection of essays, he reflects on their work, their personal relationships, their motives, and their contributions. Even for those people he writes about that he did not know personally, he provides important insights into their lives and work, and questions their character, their decisions, and the lives they led.

In the first three essays, for example, Professor Bernstein looks at economic theory and how some physicists who developed interesting economic models based on derivatives and hedge funds almost led to the country into bankruptcy. In later essays, he discusses a suspect visit to Poland by the great Heisenberg during the Nazi era, a visit that there is almost nothing written about.

There are essays on ancient languages and a nuclear weapons program in South Africa that was supposedly dismantled. In one particularly humorous essay, he describes how an ill-conceived manned spaceship to be powered by an atomic bomb was being developed by some of the country’s most powerful intellects. Needless to say, the project never got off the ground!

Dipping into these pages is like rummaging around in the mind of a genius who has a potpourri of interests and an abundance of fascinating experiences. Bernstein has not only has rubbed elbows with some of the finest minds in world, he has worked with them and played with them. He has sometimes mourned with them and laughed at them. His sharp wit and even sharper analysis make for reading you simply can’t put down.

Author(s): Jeremy Bernstein (auth.)
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York
Year: 2008

Language: English
Pages: 182
Tags: History of Science; Popular Science, general; Economics general; Economic Theory

Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Options....Pages 3-7
Black-Scholes....Pages 9-14
The Rise and Fall of the Quants....Pages 15-22
Heisenberg in Poland....Pages 25-34
The Orion....Pages 35-42
Tales from South Africa....Pages 43-45
A Nuclear Supermarket....Pages 47-55
Ottavio Baldi: The Life and Times of Sir Henry Wotton....Pages 57-69
The Spencers of Althorp and Sir William Jones: A Love Story....Pages 73-86
All That Glitters....Pages 87-105
In a Word, “Lions”....Pages 107-110
The Pianist, Fiction and Non-fiction....Pages 113-120
Rocket Science....Pages 121-132
The Science of Michel Thomas....Pages 133-146
Topology....Pages 147-154
What the #$*!?....Pages 155-157
Back Matter....Pages 159-182