Beyond Uncertainty
Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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David C. Cassidy
About this listen
In 1992, David C. 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.
©2009 David C. Cassidy (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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fascinating insight into the real drama of physics
- By Anonymous User on 09-07-10
By: David Lindley
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Churchill's Bomb
- How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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As award-winning biographer and science writer Graham Farmelo describes in Churchill's Bomb, the British set out to investigate the possibility of building nuclear weapons before their American colleagues. But when scientists in Britain first discovered a way to build an atomic bomb, Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not make the most of his country's lead and was slow to realize the bomb's strategic implications.
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Loved it!! This was great.
- By MAC24211 on 09-08-21
By: Graham Farmelo
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The Infinity Puzzle
- Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe
- By: Frank Close
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The second half of the 20th century witnessed a scientific gold rush as physicists raced to chart the inner workings of the atom. The stakes were high, the questions were big, and there were Nobel Prizes and everlasting glory to be won. Many mysteries of the atom came unraveled, but one remained intractable-what Frank Close calls the "Infinity Puzzle."
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Succinct exposition
- By Anonymous User on 06-26-12
By: Frank Close
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What Is Real?
- The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics
- By: Adam Becker
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favored practical experiments over philosophical arguments.
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Good, "light" "read"... potential caveat below...
- By Anonymous User on 03-31-18
By: Adam Becker
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Einstein's War
- How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I
- By: Matthew Stanley
- Narrated by: Matthew Stanley
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Few recognize how the Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Einstein’s life and work. While Einstein never held a rifle, he formulated general relativity blockaded in Berlin, literally starving. He lost 50 pounds in three months, unable to communicate with his most important colleagues. Some of those colleagues fought against rabid nationalism; others were busy inventing chemical warfare - scientists trapped in the power plays of empire. Meanwhile, Einstein struggled to craft relativity and persuade the world that it was correct.
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When will I learn?
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-20
By: Matthew Stanley
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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The Glass Universe
- How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
- By: Dava Sobel
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Number-one New York Times best-selling author Dava Sobel returns with the captivating, little-known true story of a group of women whose remarkable contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
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But the seeing, which was everything, was better
- By Anonymous User on 01-07-17
By: Dava Sobel
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Anonymous User on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
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Significant Figures
- The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.
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Beware
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-18
By: Ian Stewart
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The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved
- How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. The first popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a beautifully written and dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest and most intriguing mathematicians in history.
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Historical Perspective Appreciated
- By Anonymous User on 01-22-20
By: Mario Livio
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Kissinger: Volume I
- 1923-1968: The Idealist
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 11-10-15
By: Niall Ferguson