The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists
From Newton to computer chess, engaging inquiries from and award-winning science writer.
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Bernstein (a physicist who has published numerous articles for non-scientists) focuses his discussion on the human experience within stories about science, the "merely personal" of the quote (Einstein wrote that he went into science to avoid the merely personal). These well-written essays (some were previously published), written for the lay public, describe the famous chess match of Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky, that of Gary Kasparov and IBM's computer Deep Blue, Tom Stoppard's reading of quantum mechanics in this play Hapgood , a 1987 explosion of a star and the resulting supernova, and give a lengthy history of the experiments with neutrinos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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