Books

Praise for Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb

“[An] excellent discussion of science, society, and the influence of the individual scientist.”
—Alvin M. Saperstein, Wayne State University, Physics Today

"Cassidy does not so much exculpate Heisenberg as explain him, with a transparency that makes this biography a pleasure to read." —Los Angeles Times

"What Cassidy seeks to understand is why Heisenberg chose—indeed fought—to remain in Germany under the Nazi regime and then took a leadership role in its efforts to split the atom. Heisenberg later rationalized these activities, but Cassidy shows that the account in the scientist’s memoirs doesn’t always agree with evidence in the recovered documents. Heisenberg’s famous wartime meeting with his one-time mentor Niels Bohr in Copenhagen is parsed in detail as Cassidy considers their conflicting accounts. Exhaustively detailed yet eminently readable, this is an important book..."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An excellent work of scholarship….Cassidy tells this story with nuance and passion.”
--Mark Walker, author of Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb

“A must read book about key players in science and world history. “
--Gerald Holton, Research Professor of Physics and History of Science, Harvard University and author of Einstein, History and other Passions

"David C. Cassidy has written the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist." — Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

"On the controversies about Heisenberg's behavior during the Hitler regime, Cassidy is clear and reasonable." — The New York Review of Books

"A fascinating, well-documented biography." — The New York Times Book Review

"An important book. Cassidy has sifted the record and brilliantly detailed Heisenberg's actions." — The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Beyond Uncertainty

Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb

By David C. Cassidy

$27.00/ Hardcover
13-digit ISBN: 978-1-934137-13-0

In 1992, David Cassidy's groundbreaking biography of Werner Heisenberg, Uncertainty, was published to resounding acclaim from scholars and critics. Michael Frayn, in the Playbill of the Broadway production of Copenhagen, referred to it as one of his main sources and "the standard work in English." Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atom Bomb) called it "the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist," and the Los Angeles Times praised it as "an important book. Cassidy has sifted the record and brilliantly detailed Heisenberg's actions." No book that has appeared since has rivaled Uncertainty, now out of print, for its depth and rich detail of the life, times and science of this brilliant and controversial figure of 20th century physics.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg's role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist's personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime.

David C. Cassidy is the author of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Einstein and Our World, and Uncertainty. Professor of Natural Sciences at Hofstra University, he has served as Associate Editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. He is the only author to have received both the Science Writing Award of the American Institute of Physics and the Pfizer Award of the History of Science Society for the same book (Uncertainty).

Publication Date: February 2009 / Pages 480 / Trim Size: 6.13 x 9.25