Nightmares of a physicist

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 20

Nightmares of a physicist

Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist. By Russell McCormmach. King Penguin, 1983. 215 pp. $10.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Tom Weston) It is September, 1918, and World War I is staggering to a close. For Professor Jakob, honorary professor of theoretical physics, life is assuming unwelcome complications. He retreats to a world of reminiscence, out of sorts with the Zeitgeist of twentieth-century Germany. The imminent destruction of his country provides the backdrop for his view of contemporary physics. The new century, having waited only four years before springing its first surprise, has proved a shock for the ageing academic. Planck’s theory in 1904, and Einstein’s of relativity in 1905, have completely finessed his own theory of the world-ether. Such a simplistic view is no longer tenable: a lifetime’s work has been rendered illusory. The turmoil strikes deeper than mere personal crisis. The first 20 years of the century were cathartic. Warfare

sought new extremes; physics broke with years of tradition; literature and art drew on the archaic and gained momentous direction; social attitudes changed dramatically. The pace then slowed. To some extent only physics maintained the momentum. Neils Bohr’s principles of indeterminancy became the norm rather than the exception. The present day quark model (what would Jakob have made of that?) continues to reflect Bohr’s conception of reality. Jakob is a fictional archetype, an amalgam of “types,” from the period. The work suffers as a consequence. His characterisation is minimal and unsatisfying, providing merely a vehicle (plodding at that) for a quick survey of modern physics. The “giants” of the time appear as mere shadows, tantalising by their slight presence. McCormmach misses a golden opportunity. What could have been a stunning work on the period is instead a dull water colour filled with murky silhouettes.