A Brilliant Darkness
The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the N
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
On the night of March 26, 1938, nuclear physicist Ettore Majorana boarded a ship, cash and passport in hand. He was never seen again. In A Brilliant Darkness, theoretical physicist Joao Magueijo tells the story of Majorana and his research group, "the Via Panisperna Boys," who discovered atomic fission in 1934. As Majorana, the most brilliant of the group, began to realize the implications of what they had found, he became increasingly unstable. Did he commit suicide that night in Palermo? Was he kidnapped? Did he stage his own death?
A Brilliant Darkness chronicles Majorana's invaluable contributions to science -- including his major discovery, the Majorana neutrino -- while revealing the truth behind his fascinating and tragic life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Part mystery, part biography and part nuclear physics primer, Magueijo's book takes readers through an investigation into the melodramatic life, work and bizarre disappearance of a troubled young physicist after he boarded a ship in Palermo on the cusp of WWII. A "twisted prodigy raised by domineering parents, Majorana (born 1906) became one of the Via Panisperna boys, a group of raucous young physicists nurtured by fission pioneer Enrico Fermi. Majorana discovered a subatomic particle called the Majorana neutrino, but refused to publish any papers and so never got credit for his discovery. Magueijo's examination of Majorana, aided by interviews with his living relatives, reveals a troubled, confounding man whose disappearance has inspired as many conspiracy theories as the Roswell incident. Whether Majorana committed suicide, joined a monastery, or ran off to Argentina, whether he deserves a Nobel Prize (if he's still alive somewhere) as Magueijo, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College, London (Faster than the Speed of Light), insists, it's clear his life and approach to his work were both singular and outrageously strange. Photos, illus.
