Uncertainty

I am a physicist by (long ago) training, so I try to stay up to date in astronomy and physics. Also very interested in the history of these sciences. Just finished David Lindley's new book : Uncertainty. Lindley is a Phd Astrophysicist. A very non-technical look at the history of the subject and all the players involved. Heisenberg, in particular, has seen much publicity in the last few years. To what degree did he sabotage the Nazi bomb effort, or did he believe that a bomb would require tons of fissile material and just stumble in the effort? The debate, which I read about in the NYRB, even produced a play: Copenhagen, about the conversations between Bohr and Heisenberg, which I saw in NY a few years ago. A friend quipped that before seeing Copenhagen a degree in physics or the history of the subject was useful.

Lindley's book is good. It's completely non-technical, nary an equation to be seen. It still is dense for those that have not taken a college level physics course or studied the history of science. Or are at least enthusiastic about the subject. He makes a too much of Heisenberg's membership in wandervogel (hiking) societies in Germany. He makes too little of the broad misinterpretation of Heisenberg's uncertainty as the fact that an observation can influence its subject, for example in the interpretation of literature. I like his link to Adam's Education of Henry Adams, though physicists may cringe.

His final conclusion regarding Heisenberg's wartime complicity is that H never denied he misled his superiors, nor did he say he did. He does provide a good overview of the history of atomic theories, from planetary model to a strange view of uncertainty. Influenced even by the translation of the word Heisenberg used from German to English. Ending in a struggle for the soul of science that is still under way. Worthwhile read.