Gino Segré, a University of Pennsylvania high-energy-physics theory professor, received awards from the Department of Energy as well as from the National Science, Alfred P. Sloan, and the John S. Guggenheim Foundations. This was a gift book.

The books flaps give a very good summary which I present below in its four paragraph entirety:

“It is April 1932 at Neils Bohr’s Copenhagen Institute. About forty scientists have come together for their once-a-year chance to work, socialize, gossip, and prod and badger each other in a freewheeling discussion about the future of physics, all under the watchful eye of their beloved mentor. They have much to talk about for this is a pivotal moment in science, in their own careers, and, sadly, in the history of their countries.

“Known by physicists as the miracle year, 1932 saw the discovery of the neutron and antimatter as well as the first artificially induced nuclear transmutations. However, while scientists celebrated these momentous discoveries, which presaged the nuclear era and the emergence of big science, Europe was moving inexorably towards totalitarianism and war. Hitler’s ascent to power changed the lives of these scientists and rendered it impossible to recreate the happy, carefree atmosphere of the 1932 gathering.

“A physicist himself, Gino Segré writes about what scientist do – and why they do it – with intimacy and passion. His book centers on the lives and careers of seven physicists who dominated the Copenhagen Meeting. Three of them – Bohr, Paul Ehrenfest, and Lise Meitner – are in their fifties, established members of the older generation. Three of them – Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac – are only thirty, but already in the pantheon of the physics greats. The youngest, Max Delbruck, age twenty-five, is the author of the satiric skit that concludes the meeting, a session where the young physicists poke fun at their elders. An adaptation to the world of physics of Goethe’s Faust, the skit eerily foreshadows many of the events that will come to pass.

“The discoveries of 1932 bring the first glimmerings of the nuclear weapons that will move physicists into the world of nations’ power struggles. It was the quiet before the storm. Capturing the interplay between the great scientists and as well as the discoveries they discussed and debated, Segré evokes the moment when physics – and the world – was about to lose its innocence forever.”

So, what can I add to the above but my impressions and a warning? The warning is that Segré assumes knowledge, at the level of a college senior major in physics (or chemistry), of the early experimental and theoretical discoveries that led to the birth of ‘modern’ physics. When I was a senior physics major, the textbooks we studied focused on the new quantum physics and how the scientists mentioned above (plus several who were not as crucial to the theoretical developmental of quantum physics) developed the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics. What Segré gives us here is the many and various arguments held by these theorists, who had been meeting regularly at Copenhagen, as the new experiments led to changes in classical physics demanded by the quantum nature of the atomic and nuclear levels of nature. Segré’s portrayal of the one-on-one discussions, often with Bohr and a theorist talking a long walk to ‘talk through’ the problems they were trying to resolve, confirms what I had learned elsewhere of how Bohr’s tact and his general personality was a key factor in keeping disagreements of hypotheses from becoming personal. Bohr made sure all remained friends. He was the key to finding the consensus we now call the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. I had learned a lot from Neils Bohr’s son Aage, also a nuclear physicist, who ‘inherited’ this aspect of his father’s personality and leadership style.

I feel that this book would be much enjoyed by physicists, chemists, and science historians who know the science background, classical and modern, required to best appreciate the clashes of personalities that took place during the theoretical difficulties of bringing about the new physics of quantum mechanics. As for Albert Einstein, enough was said here about him to clarify his wish for a way to make the new quantum physics compatible with his remarkably successful theories of relativity, both special and general. I also wish that more had been said of Erwin Schroedinger’s contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, but he was not a regular member of the group the met each year at Bohr’s Institute in Copenhagen. So with only a few caveats, I can still very highly recommend this exceptionally well-written and enjoyable book to the types of readers mentioned above.