Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist - Softcover

Night Thoughts Of A Classical Physicist Edition:

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380562839 ISBN 13: 9780380562831

Publisher: Avon Books, 1983

Synopsis

Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist It is the end of an historical epoch, but to an old professor of physics, Victor Jakob, sitting in his unlighted study, eating dubious bread with jam made from turnips, it is the end of a way of thinking in his own subject. Younger men have challenged the classical world picture of physics and are looking forward to observational tests of Einstein's new theory of relativity as well as the creation... Full description

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Review

"Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jakob contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.

I should like to recommend Ýthis book¨ to a large audience...for its charm, its intensity, and its scholarship. -- Laurie M. Brown "Science"

physicist's precision and a poet's intensity.

theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.

Night Thoughts is an interdisciplinary adventure, designed to entice the reluctant general reader into the unfamiliar terrain of physics; to lure the wary specialist out of the laboratory and away from the blackboard, into the world of fantasy...[McCormmach's] prose acquires an emotional breadth and intellectual depth seldom achieved by the novelist...An innovative and often lyrical book, written with a physicist's precision and a poet's intensity.

Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jakob contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.

"Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist" is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jakob contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.--Daniel J. Kevles "New York Times Book Review "

"Night Thoughts" is an interdisciplinary adventure, designed to entice the reluctant general reader into the unfamiliar terrain of physics; to lure the wary specialist out of the laboratory and away from the blackboard, into the world of fantasy...[McCormmach's] prose acquires an emotional breadth and intellectual depth seldom achieved by the novelist...An innovative and often lyrical book, written with a physicist's precision and a poet's intensity.--Elaine Kendall "Los Angeles Times Book Review "

I should like to recommend [this book] to a large audience...for its charm, its intensity, and its scholarship.--Laurie M. Brown "Science "

A brilliant piece of scholarship and a profoundly moving portrait of a man and his time.--Peter Stoler "Time "

An extraordinary experiment in historiography...Based on impeccable and wide ranging scholarship, [McCormmach's] authoritative portrayal has the vitality and directness that only narrative affords.--Thomas S. Kuhn

Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist is an artful experiment in writing the history of science. The book is a sort of prose poem, consisting of the ruminations--part memory, part dream--of the fictional Victor Jakob, an elderly theoretical physicist at a minor Prussian university, who in September 1918 broods over his career through the nights preceding his death. In passages of luminous simplicity, Jakob contemplates the intellectual upheavals in science from the creation of the German Empire in 1870 to its collapse in 1918, from the reign of classical physicists to the revolutions produced by the relativity and quantum theories...[This] is a sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.--Daniel J. Kevles "New York Times Book Review "

Night Thoughts is an interdisciplinary adventure, designed to entice the reluctant general reader into the unfamiliar terrain of physics; to lure the wary specialist out of the laboratory and away from the blackboard, into the world of fantasy...[McCormmach's] prose acquires an emotional breadth and intellectual depth seldom achieved by the novelist...An innovative and often lyrical book, written with a physicist's precision and a poet's intensity.--Elaine Kendall "Los Angeles Times Book Review "

From the Back Cover

'A sensitive and compelling work about the confrontation of a classical spirit with the raw disorders of the modern scientific age.'---Daniel J. Kevles, New York Times Book Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0380562839
• ISBN 13: 9780380562831
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English