Table Of Content

Selected other titles by Edmund Blair Bolles The Ice Finders: How a Poet, a Professor, and a Politician Discovered the Ice Age A Second Way of Knowing: The Riddle of Human Perception Remembering and Forgetting: Inquiries into the Nature of Memory So Much to Say: How to Help Your Child Learn Galileo’s Commandment: An Anthology of Great Science Writing (editor) Edmund Blair Bolles Joseph Henry Press Washington, DC Joseph Henry Press • 500 Fifth Street, NW • Washington, DC 20001 The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health more widely available to professionals and the public. Joseph Henry was one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in early American science. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bolles, Edmund Blair, 1942- Einstein defiant : genius versus genius in the quantum revolution / by Edmund Blair Bolles. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-309-08998-0 (hbk.) 1. Quantum theory—History—20th century. 2. Physics—Europe—History— 20th century. 3. Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955. 4. Bohr, Niels Henrik David, 1885-1962. I. Title. QC173.98.B65 2004 530.12′09—dc22 2003023735 Copyright 2004 by Edmund Blair Bolles. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. To Kelso Walker and the rest of the crew, volunteers all. Tanzania XII: U.S. Peace Corps, 1966-1968 Bohr asked me to sit down and soon started to pace furiously around the oblong table in the center of the room. He then asked me if I could note down a few sentences as they emerged during his pacing. Bohr never had a full sentence ready. He would often dwell on one word, coax it, implore it, to find the continuation. This could go on for several minutes. At that moment the word was ‘Einstein’. There was Bohr, almost running around the table and repeating: ‘Einstein . . . Einstein . . .’. After a little while he walked to the window, gazed out, repeating every now and then: ‘Einstein . . . Einstein . . .’. —Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times Contents A RADICAL FACT RESISTED 1 The Opposite of an Intriguer 3 2 Not German at All 12 3 I Never Fully Understood It 26 4 Independence and Inner Freedom 35 5 A Mercy of Fate 51 6 Picturesque Phrases 57 7 Scientific Dada 68 8 Such a Devil of a Fellow 76 9 Intuition and Inspiration 86 10 Bold, Not to Say Reckless 94 11 A Completely New Lesson 102 12 Slaves to Time and Space 110 13 Where All Weaker Imaginations Wither 116 14 A Triumph of Einstein Over Bohr 127 A RADICAL THEORY CREATED 15 Something Deeply Hidden 137 16 Completely Solved 146 17 Exciting and Exacting Times 162 vii viii CONTENTS 18 Intellectual Drunkenness 184 19 The Observant Executrix 195 20 It Might Look Crazy 204 21 Taking Nothing Solemnly 211 22 How Much More Gratifying 218 A RADICAL UNDERSTANDING DEFIED 23 Sorcerer's Multiplication 229 24 Adding Two Nonsenses 236 25 Admiration and Suspicion 241 26 An Unrelenting Fanatic 248 27 The Secret of the Old One 251 28 Indeterminacy 256 29 A Very Pleasant Talk 264 30 The Dream of His Life 276 31 The Saddest Chapter 285 32 A Reality Independent of Man 291 33 A Certain Unreasonableness 299 Afterword 305 Bibliography 309 Sources 317 Index 337 Part I A Radical Fact Resisted