Books
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Lise Meitner. A Life in Physics, Ruth Lewin Sime (ISBN 978-0-520-20860-5, University of California Press)
This is the second biography of Lise Meitner I read. After reading the biography by Patricia Rife I was at first hesitant to also go and read this book by Ruth Lewin Sime. But after finishing the book I have to say it was well worth every minute. Where the biography of Patricia Rife focused…
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Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, Patricia Rife (ISBN 978-0817637323, Birkhäuser)
A very nice biography about one of the ‘forgotten’ women of science. I came across a reference to this book somewhere and decided to read it as part of my ‘atomic’ theme. It also fits nicely into a series of books I am reading about women scientists. I had read the excellent ‘The making of…
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A Tour of the Calculus, David Berlinski (ISBN 978-0-679-74788-8, Vintage Books)
A Tour of the Calculus is a strange and unique book. According to text on the back it is likely to become a classic as Gödel, Escher, Bach. But I doubt that very much. The book was written in 1995 and so far I haven’t come across it in any list of classics. I also…
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Through rugged ways to the stars, Harlow Shapley (ISBN 9781124074719, Charles Scribner’s Sons)
This is the autobiography of Harlow Shapley, the man who discovered size of the milky way and the place of our sun in it. Shapley considered the discovery that our sun was not in the center of the milky way as his most important contribution to our world view because it was more or less…
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The Story of Numbers, John McLeish (ISBN 978-0-449-90938-6, Fawcett Columbine)
The Story of Numbers explores the history of mathematics to trace the rise of various number systems in cultures from Mesopotamia to the modern Computer Era. It is not a traditional history of mathematics or a history of mathematicians. Instead it focuses on the different number systems and calculation methods that evolved in time in…
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The Discoverers, Daniel J. Boorstin (ISBN 978-039472625-0, Vintage)
This book by Daniel Boorstin was first published in 1983. I read the Dutch translation around 1995 at which time it made quite an impression on me. In my mind it was still among the best books I have read. End of last year I decided to read it again but in the original English…
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb : 25th Anniversary Edition, Richard Rhodes (ISBN 978-1451677614, Simon & Schuster)
Last year ‘revolved’ about the history of the atomic bomb with the Oppenheimer movie being released. To brush up on my Oppenheimer I read 2 biographies, one by Abraham Pais and the other one the Pulitzer Prize winning American Prometheus. And then I decided to finally read book by Richard Rhodes about the making of…
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Napoleon. Deel 2: van Keizer tot mythe, Johan op de Beeck (ISBN , 9789022329979, Manteau)
New summer holiday so time to re read part 2 of the Napoleon biography from Johan op de Beeck. Although equally good as part 1 this book was a bit harder to get through the second time. It has not so much to do with the writing but all the more with the events in…
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American Prometheus. The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin (ISBN 9780375726262, Vintage Books)
The pulitzer prize winning biography of Robert Oppenheimer. The one on which the Oppenheimer movie from 2023 is based. I read the book after seeing the movie. The main reason being I didn’t have the book yet and it took some time before it got delivered. Instead I read the biography by Pais first before…
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