The Physicists

by C.P. Snow

Introduction-Wm Cooper
The Direction of Time's Arrow
From Macrocosm to Microcosm
Founding Fathers
The Quiet Dane
The Golden Age
The Clouds Gather
'This Will Never Happen"
Nuclear Fusion
The Younger Masters
A Different Harvest
The Double Legacy
Appendices:
A New Means of Destruction?
Einstein's Letter to President Roosevelt
The Moral Un-Neutrality of Science
Index
Acknowledgements

Genres: Science, History, Physics, Nonfiction, Biography

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1981

About the author

Known British scientist Charles Percy Snow, baron Snow of Leicester, wrote especially his 11-volume series Strangers and Brothers (1940-1970).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a readable history of "modern" physics, mainly focused on the science and politics of nuclear weapons but covering atomic physics from Rutherford up to 1980 - no superstrings here. I think it's too superficial to really explain much of the physics to complete novices but covers the history and personalities well enough, given the time of writing. But...

In an introduction it is mentioned that Snow wrote this "from memory," which turns out to be a problem for me. There is no form of reference to sources or even a bibliography, so it's impossible to know where Snow's memories originate; personal experience, historical research, hear-say? Dunno. That's no good for me. I particularly wanted to know the basis for his statements about Heisenberg. I didn't catch Snow in any mistakes but I've no way to easily check.

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Either my understanding of physics is getting better, or C.P. Snow was a gifted science communicator. I'm happy to think maybe my enjoyment of 'The Physicists' owes a little to both.

'The Physicists' is the first draft, completed just before Snow's death in July 1980, of what was intended to be a much longer book on the history of nuclear physics. According to the introduction Snow wrote the book largely from memory: his editor, William Cooper, observes

"It's odd - memory, even a memory as comprehensive as his, has its selectiveness, its patches, its things that stand out for reasons of other than factual importance. When an artist calls upon memory, what he writes has a life and a moving quality which scarcely ever infuses the product of the filing cabinet which we now refer to as researched information."

Snow viewed the development of the study of nuclear physics - through theory and through experiment - as the defining intellectual achievement of the 20th century. His book begins with Faraday, Maxwell Clark, J.J.Thomson, Roentgen and the Curies, and then spends a long, pleasurable time with Rutherford, Bohr and Einstein, looking at how experimental and theoretical science spurred each other along.

Snow's thumbnail sketches of scientists of this period - many of whom he studied under, worked with or met during his time lecturing at Cambridge prior to WWII and his entry into the public service - are sympathetic and insightful. He captures the magic of this time, the collegiality, the courtesy, the extraordinary advances in knowledge.

So far in my reading about 20th century physics I've avoided the atomic bomb. Perhaps like some scientists of the era, I feel like this moment in our history somehow desecrated the beauty and the purity of the research - a betrayal of the intellect. Snow's chapters on the science and politics of the development of the nuclear (and later hydrogen bomb) are engrossing, but I find his final verdict - that a nuclear stand-off, where everyone has enough power to blow up bits of the world and therefore has reason not to exercise it - a little chilling. The end of the book seems to want to divert concern away from the threat of nuclear weapons towards hopes for clean nuclear energy (a potential, he thought, that would 'be realised within our children's life times').

Snow's interest in the moral questions of science make for interesting reading. This book was written the year after I was born, after 35 years of concern and fear around the bomb. Snow points to a new area of worry - the development of computers and microprocessors. The threat they posed was to to disrupt the labour force, and create widespread unemployment. "It is silly to be frightened of computers" he writes, but this latest development in applied physics may, "Like other gifts, ... be a tow-edged sword or have two faces".

Near the end of the book Snow touches on molecular biology. He comes to it via crystollography, a branch of physics examines the physical structure of atoms using radiography, a science that, although respectable, Rutherford would not allow into the Cavendish Lab, and ultimately, the science that provided Crick and Watson to put together the model of the double helix. Here I found Snow's observations particularly interesting:

"'Biotechnology' is becoming a major new industry. Philosophically, the ability to alter the basis of life at will may have even more effect. The meaning of this work hasn't sunk into popular consciousness, even among intellectual persons, with anything like the rapidity of Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'. In the long run it may do as much or more to alter men's view of themselves. That, though, will have to wait until the twenty-first century."

A far more accurate prediction than his hopes for fusion energy, it turns out. Overall, this short, swift book is a robust discussion of roughly a century of science, highly personalised but not in the least quirky or whimsical. Highly recommended.

[James Traxler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at the physicists who made their mark throughout the 20th century.
Lots of personal opinions on their characters, which made it really interesting, rather than just dry science.
A good way to get interested in an subject is to know find out about its human elements (ho ho ho).
This book gives you information on the actual discoveries, in a very understandable way.
Much of the 20th century physics covered in this book (up to 1980 when Lord Snow died) is about the micro level (the structure of the atom - sub-atomic) rather than the macro level (looking up at the sky and vast universe we find ourselves in).
Well worth reading, or indeed re-reading (in my case).
I vaguely originally recall reading my copy, or at least some of it, way back when I was taking 'A' Level Physics, and it helped me get interested enough to pass!

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book 30 years or so ago and enjoyed it very much as a readable and informative survey of 20th-Century physics and the people who developed it, including the development of the atom bomb and it is still very good.

CP Snow was a fine scientist himself and also a very accomplished novelist, so this is a very well-informed and well written account. It is often anecdotal and discursive. We get a good account of the science, written in terms a lay person could follow, and insights into the lives and characters of the scientists themselves. There is some pretty well-known stuff, like the famous walk in the snow by Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch which yielded the idea of nuclear fission, but also smaller, more intimate insights and personal sketches - often of people whom Snow knew personally.

This was the last thing Snow wrote and is a draft completed just before his death in 1980 of a planned longer work. It works very well as it is and its concision is a bonus, I think - Snow could be somewhat long-winded for my taste and this is admirably to the point throughout. The book won't serve as a definitive history, but is an excellent and enjoyable overview, very well illustrated with photographs. I had studied a lot of this stuff in some depth but still enjoyed it a great deal, and it would be an excellent introduction for the non-scientist. Recommended.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a history of the physics leading to the development of thermonuclear weaponry. The emphasis is on the scientists more than on the science itself because Snow has a moral purpose which is most directly addressed by two of the appendices.

The book is weak, the coverage of the physicists primarily anecdotal, the review of the science sketchy and unsatisfying. It is more a plan for a book, with some parts finished, others not, than a completed text.

Insofar as Snow intended to deal with the moral aspects of doing such science, he certainly touches on the dilemma facing nuclear physicists during the years leading up to and including World War Two. He barely touches the Cold War, however, and utterly fails to appreciate the institutional dynamics of modern capital-intensive science research and development. Perhaps it was possible for the international community of physicists to exercise some effective ethical restraint during the thirties--not that there is much evidence that it mattered--but it is well-nigh impossible today. If there's a perceived profit to a new technology, either economic or military, its development is virtually inevitable. Our technology far exceeds our political means to control it.

[minhhai · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the first draft of C.P.Snow who was a British physicist and later a novelist. It covers major discoveries in nuclear physics in the first half of 20th century. Don't worry, you don't need to be a physicist to enjoy this book as it does not perflex you with series of equations and jargons. Instead, it tells stories, more like a scientific history book.

The book revives the scientific and political atmosphere in the first half of 20th century. It depicts the interaction between physicists and their scientific and social circumstances: the emerge of British and American nuclear physics, the pressure for atomic and hydrogen bombs and finally in its appendix, the responsibility of physicists to the society and human-kind.

Although many stories are very interesting and exciting to read, the book lacks details. Some parts seem to be so subjective to the author's own experiences and judgments, some others irrelevant to the mainstream, some totally unclear on what the author wanted to imply. In the foreword, it's said that the book was the first draft and written mostly from Snow's memory. That may be a good excuse.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It narrates the advances made in physics from the late 1800s to 1980 and how all the major scientists (from Bohr and Rutherford to Einstein and Oppenheimer) interacted with each other. I thought it was fascinating.