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Description edit
The classic intellectual autobiography of a great theoretical physicist Spanning the years from World War II, when he was a civilian statistician in the operations research section of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, through his studies with Hans Bethe at Cornell University, his early... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Dick Feynman: Add a description of this character.
- Julian Schwinger
- Einstein
- George
- Meselson
- Gandhi
- Frank Thompson
- Ted Taylor
- Hans Bethe
- Oppenheimer
- Hitler
- Paul
- Khrushchev
- Kennedy
- Eliot
- Mcphee
- John
- Von Neumann
- Strangelove
- Ann Arbor
- M.f.
- Robert
- Milton
- Niels Bohr
- Huxley
- Cocconi
- O'neill
- Wells
- Tomonaga
- Stimson
- Morrison
- Freddy
- Wadman
- Nesbit
- Sohn
- Jim
- Eddington
- Pirsig
- Monod
- Haldane
- Willrich
Setting & Locations edit
- United States
- Princeton
- Los Alamos
- England
- Berlin
- Vietnam
- London
- Washington
- Cornell
- America
- Europe
- Winchester
- Dresden
- Albuquerque
- Soviet Union
- California
- Hiroshima
- Germany
- San Diego
- Japan
- Cambridge
- Wyton
- Bomber Command
- Berkeley
- New York
- Vienna
- Magic City
- Santa Barbara
- Israel
- Columbia
- Goethe
- Chicago
- Haifa
- Litakovo
- Ithaca
- Llandudno
- Geneva
First Sentence edit
A small boy with a book, high up in a tree.
Themes & Symbolism edit
- War: Dyson describes his experience during WWII and the horror of "strategic bombing" campaigns.
- Naïvete: Dyson describes a sort of intellectual disconnect between what he was doing – the mathematical simulations to understand how to create a "fire storm" from combined high-explosive and incendiary bombs – and the actual actions. He describes his deep regret from being a part of it, and yet explains that he had very little understanding of what he was doing at the time.
- Cosmology: Dyson goes into some cursory (relative to, say, Hawking or Tipler) explanations of cosmology and to a lesser extent, eschatology, describing the ultimate fate of the Universe as we presently understand things mathematically.
Series & Lists edit
This book is in GBN Book Club. (community list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Freeman Dyson (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Harper & Row
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 1979
ISBN: 0060111089
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper & Row
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 1979
ISBN: 0060111089
Page Count: 304
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 530.092
Notes for Parents edit
Reading Level: Young AdultsWhile there are some complex scientific concepts that may be difficult to grasp, Dyson goes to great lengths to make the text very available to all readers, regardless of technical competency. The brief descriptions of what a fire storm is in terms of strategic bombing are horrific, but presented in a very sterile, dry way; just the facts are presented. Young adults should not have a problem consuming the book, but it would not mean much to any younger age bracket, let alone be of much interest.
Books That Cite This Book edit
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