Mr. Tompkins Gets Serious: The Essential George Gamow, The Masterpiece Science Edition

Mr. Tompkins Gets Serious: The Essential George Gamow (2005) Pi Press, ISBN 0-13-187291-5. Incorporates material from Matter, Earth & Sky & The Atom & Its Nucleus. Notwithstanding the title, this book is not part of the Mr. Tompkins series.

"Modern physics extends its horizons far beyond the everyday experience upon which all the commonsense ideas of classical physics were based. We are thus bound to find striking deviations from our conventional way of thinking and must be prepared to encounter facts that sound quite paradoxical to our ordinary common sense."

—George Gamow

"Gamow never talks down to the reader, nor does he sidestep difficult issues. Rather, his lucid writing, careful explanations, and vivid imagery make the most abstruse topics accessible."

—Robert Oerter

"My father delighted in telling people that his book, along with Lady Chatterley's Lover, and James Joyce's Ulysses, had been banned in Boston."

—R. Igor Gamow

Here are the classic writings by the theorist behind the Big Bang and the cracking of DNA—one of twentieth-century science's most brilliant minds and charismatic characters. From what happens inside the atom to how things work on larger scales in the universe, readers can rely on George Gamow's authority and be delighted by his sheer joy of physics.

Gamow's breadth of knowledge was astounding—he made major contributions to advances in both cosmology and molecular biology. His elucidation of radioactivity and the Big Bang theory, and his groundbreaking work on deciphering the genetic code make him one of the twentieth century's greatest scientists. He was also the creator of the highly popular Mr. Tompkins series of books. Here he offers his thoughts on how the atom works; radioactivity; electromagnetism; the nature of light; and how scientists understand space, time, and motion. These writings were collected from his exhaustive volume on the physical sciences Matter, Earth, and Sky and The Atom and Its Nucleus—neither of which are now available.

Lovers of the Feynman Lectures will recognize a similar kind of scientific brilliance made accessible in a way that only those with the highest understanding can provide. Great science deserves the eloquence and passion of George Gamow, and this volume has the added virtue of Robert Oerter's editorial skill, as well as a rare insight into Gamow the man in the Foreword by his son. This Masterpiece Science Edition delivers another outstanding work of science writing to a new generation of readers.

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