Ordinary Geniuses
How Two Mavericks Shaped Modern Science
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3.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A biography of two maverick scientists whose intellectual wanderlust kick-started modern genomics and cosmology.
Max Delbruck and George Gamow, the so-called ordinary geniuses of Segre's third book, were not as famous or as decorated as some of their colleagues in midtwentieth-century physics, yet these two friends had a profound influence on how we now see the world, both on its largest scale (the universe) and its smallest (genetic code). Their maverick approach to research resulted in truly pioneering science.
Wherever these men ventured, they were catalysts for great discoveries. Here Segre honors them in his typically inviting and elegant style and shows readers how they were far from "ordinary". While portraying their personal lives Segre, a scientist himself, gives readers an inside look at how science is done--collaboration, competition, the influence of politics, the role of intuition and luck, and the sense of wonder and curiosity that fuels these extraordinary minds.
Ordinary Geniuses will appeal to the readers of Simon Singh, Amir Aczel, and other writers exploring the history of scientific ideas and the people behind them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Extraordinary geniuses, like Einstein, turn our scientific worldview inside out. "Ordinary geniuses," according to University of Pennsylvania professor emeritus Segr (Faust in Copenhagen), "are more imaginative than you and me, but not qualitatively different." Two such men were George Gamow and Max Delbr ck, whose groundbreaking work inspired scientific revolutions. As students together at university in G ttingen, Germany, in the late 1920s, Geo (pronounced "Joe") and Max were fascinated by quantum mechanics. Geo quickly gained notoriety for calculating the decay probability of an unstable nucleus, a problem Ernest Rutherford had failed to solve. Later he worked out how stars burn by nuclear fusion, and the Big Bang theory of cosmology. Max itched to do "the pioneering thing," but couldn't settle on one field. Curious about connections between physics and biology, he studied genetics, where he was first to explain mutation with physics. Both men found entertainment as well as intellectual stimulation in gathering diverse minds to explore interdisciplinary connections. Segr spins a rousing tale of scientific thought and adventure. And like his subjects, he makes a convincing case for approaching new problems with a sense of wonder.
