Reviews for From a Life of Physics

The average rating for From a Life of Physics based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-05 00:00:00 Heather Vinz Although the technical descriptions provided by the authors often far exceed my knowledge of the matter, I found this book to be tremendously useful, feeling the need to take notes at least once per couple pages. The reason why these transcribed talks are so meaningful to me is that, for once, someone discusses what a physicist actually does: physics. Aside from the (to me) incomprehensible explanations of the great works these people carried out during their lifetimes, they get deep into the different ways one can approach a difficulty (Dirac), the friendly and welcoming demeanor that characterized some of the best physicists (Heisenberg), the struggles to get to a fantastic formula that describes a phenomenon (Bethe and Klein), the reasons why we must appreciate the struggles we experience while doing physics, as they give meaning to our lives (Wigner) and some of the tales that described the personality of a very special scientist (Landau, by Lifshitz). I guess that what I'm trying to say is that the authors don't waste time on dreamy concepts that aren't even proven to be true, like many other pop-science books do, these guys get right into their own lives, showing the difficulties, the passion, the methodology and the interactions that are bound to teach any young student like myself more than a few lessons for the future. You won't read about useless and vague theories, what you'll find is something that might actually impact the future scientist you are to become.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-11-23 00:00:00 Chris Burrows Great book about the journey of six scientists into the world of physics.