Gino Segrè

Physics is the Segre family business, and Gino's enthusiasm for science is very natural and infectious. This book takes the reader on a surprising tour of the cosmos, starting within the human body and ending at the limits of the universe - using the concept of temperature as a guide.

In 1932, the so-called annus mirabilis of modern physics, a group of scientists gathered in Copenhagen for a week-long conference on the extraordinary new work that was taking place in laboratories across the world; work that would ultimately lead to the development of nuclear weapons and the ensuing international power struggles. Segres erudite and impressive account explores this crucial moment in history through the lives and careers of seven physicists sitting in the front row of the Copenhagen meeting. Six of them were already in the pantheon of genius while the seventh - Max Delbruck - was the author of a skit performed at the conference that lightly parodied the struggle between the old and new theories of physics and eerily foreshadowed the events that were to unfold in the struggle between peaceful uses of scientific discovery and destructive ones.

A biography of two maverick scientists whose intellectual wanderlust kick-started modern genomics and cosmology. Max Delbruck and George Gamow, the so-called ordinary geniuses of Segres third book, were not as famous or as decorated as some of their colleagues in midtwentieth-century physics, yet these two friends had a profound influence on how we now see the world, both on its largest scale (the universe) and its smallest (genetic code). Their maverick approach to research resulted in truly pioneering science. Wherever these men ventured, they were catalysts for great discoveries. Here Segre honors them in his typically inviting and elegant style and shows readers how they were far from "ordinary". While portraying their personal lives Segre, a scientist himself, gives readers an inside look at how science is done--collaboration, competition, the influence of politics, the role of intuition and luck, and the sense of wonder and curiosity that fuels these extraordinary minds. Ordinary Geniuses will appeal to the readers of Simon Singh, Amir Aczel, and other writers exploring the history of scientific ideas and the people behind them.

In a wonderful synthesis of science, history, and imagination, Gino Segre, an internationally renowned theoretical physicist, embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of how the fundamental scientific concept of temperature is bound up with the very essence of both life and matter. Why is the internal temperature of most mammals fixed near 98.6? How do geologists use temperature to track the history of our planet? Why is the quest for absolute zero and its quantum mechanical significance the key to understanding superconductivity? And what can we learn from neutrinos, the subatomic "messages from the sun" that may hold the key to understanding the birth-and death-of our solar system? In answering these and hundreds of other temperature-sensitive questions, Segre presents an uncanny view of the world around us.

Un encuentro legendario en la historia de la física del siglo XX. Copenhague, 1932. Siete físicos, seis hombres y una mujer, asisten a un encuentro anual en el Instituto de Física Teórica. Ese año se conmemora el centenario de la muerte de Goethe y el grupo -que cada año pone en escena un pequeño sketch- decide representar Fausto en clave de parodia. Esta obra, auténtico nexo del libro, sirve para satirizar los conflictos internos de la física contemporánea: la lucha entre el bien y el mal, el posible uso destructivo de los avances científicos y el compromiso de la física en un contexto político europeo que preludiaba el peor de los escenarios. En menos de un año, el ascenso de Hitler al poder cambiaría para siempre la vida de estos científicos. Mientras los físicos discutían apasionadamente sobre los nuevos avances científicos -de teoría cuántica y del neutrón- en lo que se ha llamado "el año milagroso" de la ciencia, Europa se aproximaba inexorablemente hacia el totalitarismo y la guerra. Los físicos se verán obligados a ser cómplices de la maquinaria bélica y a sufrir las consecuencias políticas y militares de sus descubrimientos.