The Life It Brings - Softcover

Bernstein, Jeremy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140109889 ISBN 13: 9780140109887

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1988

Synopsis

The author describes the circumstances that led to his career as a physicist and writer, and shares his memories of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Freeman Dyson, and Murray Gell-Mann

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Bernstein's books include works on Einstein, Hans Bethe, elementary particlesand mountain climbing. This New Yorker staff writer and teacher seems utterly guileless in this midcareer memoir of his early years, carrying his story to the threshold of the 1960s when he lived in Paris and was preoccupied with three activities: women, tennis and physics. At this time he collaborated with the great physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who was deep in quarks and "strangeness." Bernstein apparently sees this phase of maturity (he is now in his 50s) as marking the end of his "beginnings": from a Rochester, N.Y., boyhoodthe son an eminent rabbithrough Harvard and half-hearted stabs at a career in physics. Important glimpses of famous physicists are most telling here, notably the author's unfavorable views of Edward Teller and intriguing closeups of J. Robert Oppenheimer vs. Joe McCarthy. Photos.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Bernstein, professor of physics, noted author, and science writer for the New Yorker , worked alongside some of the most eminent physicists of the 20th century: Oppenheimer, Dirac, Bohr, Lee and Yang at the Institute for Advanced Study, Murray Gell-Mann, Freeman Dyson. He worked at the Rand Corporation, he spent time at Los Alamos. It was an extraordinary and exciting time to be a student of physics. Yet the anecdotes recounted in this slim memoir are curiously uncompelling. The story ends abruptly, just as Bernstein is about to embark on his career as a writer for the New Yorker. Fragmentary and disappointing. Gloria Rohmann, Science & Technology Div., NYPL
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0140109889
• ISBN 13: 9780140109887
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192