Love and Physics

The Peierlses

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Science, Physics, General Physics, Other Sciences, History

• Author: Mikhail Shifman
• ISBN: 9789813279926
• Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
• Publication: March 6, 2019
• Imprint: WSPC
• Language: English

This special book is a compilation of essays on a remarkable but little-known story that lasted over half a century of world-renowned physicist, the late Sir Rudolf Peierls and his wife Genia Kannegiser. Peierls collected a lot of prestigious awards in his lifetime, and in the beginning of WW2, he and Otto Frisch were responsible for the inception of the Anglo-American nuclear program (1940). He was also one of the key contributors in the research at Los Alamos during those turbulent times.

Most previous books on Peierls have focused on his scientific research, while the contents for this volume sheds light on his private life in dramatic circumstances. The extensive contributions were not only gathered from the relatives of Genia, the couple's daughters, Landau's students, and from Russian and English archives, but they also include the unique perspectives of the author who is a professional theoretical physicist and is also fluent in Russian, his native language.

So, this fascinating story of love, friendship and physics between Rudolf and Genia is being told for the first time from a surprisingly new angle through correspondence between Genia and Rudolf, memoirs and other documents, interesting and informal excerpts from Peierls' private 'diary' covering the years 1979–1994 that will take the reader on a journey through communism, world war, the trials and tribulations of the loving couple with distinctly very different personalities.

Contents:

• Foreword

• The Beginning:

  • Love and Physics: The Beginning
  • Jazz Band
  • A Romance Taking Shape in Letters
  • Flashback
  • Marriage and Trepidation. March 1931
  • Flashback 2

• War and Peace:

  • Glimpses
  • Betrayal
  • Tragedy of That Generation
  • On the Other Side of the Iron Curtain
  • Rudolf Peierls: The Lesson of the Fuchs Case
  • The Peierls FBI File

• Sir Rudolf Peierls. His Diary:

  • Sir Rudolf Peierls by Sabine Lee
  • Farewell
  • Rudolf Peierls' Diary
  • Peierls, Heisenberg and Farm Hall Transcripts
  • Rudolf Peierls and Nuclear Responsibility

• Index

Readership: Physics students and historians of science.
Key Features:

• All previous books on Peierls relate to his research, while this book focuses on the private life of the Peierls in dramatic circumstances
• Most of the documentary evidence found in this book has never been published before