"People like myself, who truly feel at home in several countries, are not strictly at home anywhere," writes Abraham Pais, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, near the beginning of this engrossing chronicle of his life on two continents. The author of an immensely popular biography of Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord, Pais writes engagingly for a general audience. His "tale" describes his period of hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland (he ended the war in a Gestapo prison) and his life in America, particularly at the newly organized Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then directed by the brilliant and controversial physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Pais tells fascinating stories about Oppenheimer, Einstein, Bohr, Sakharov, Dirac, Heisenberg, and von Neumann, as well as about nonscientists like Chaim Weizmann, George Kennan, Erwin Panofsky, and Pablo Casals. His enthusiasm about science and life in general pervades a book that is partly a memoir, partly a travel commentary, and partly a history of science.
Pais's charming recollections of his years as a university student become somber with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. He was presented with an unusual deadline for his graduate work: a German decree that July 14, 1941, would be the final date on which Dutch Jews could be granted a doctoral degree. Pais received the degree, only to be forced into hiding from the Nazis in 1943, practically next door to Anne Frank. After the war, he went to the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen to work with Niels Bohr. 1946 began his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he worked first as a Fellow and then as a Professor until his move to Rockefeller University in 1963. Combining his understanding of disparate social and political worlds, Pais comments just as insightfully on Oppenheimer's ordeals during the McCarthy era as he does on his own and his European colleagues' struggles during World War II.
Originally published in 1997.
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"A brilliant and charming autobiography from a brilliant and charming physicist who worked with such greats as Bohr, Einstein, and Oppenheimer. They admired and respected him. So do I."--Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
"Pais renders observation and judgment from the world-view of a person of deeply engaged passion, and of one outwardly removed in critical reflection. Ranging between warmly playful and acerbic, exceptional events of this century appear in fascinating, multi-faceted substance. I love it!"--Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, professor, Rockefeller University
"Abraham Pais is the Samuel Pepys of 20th-century physics. . . . Until now, Pais concentrated on other scientists' work. In A Tale of Two Continents, however, he tells us about his own extraordinary life in the charming, rather formal style that has become his hallmark. Autobiography is an unrivaled way of telling the truth about other people and Pais takes full advantage of this, drawing well-observed portraits of some of his most illustrious acquaintances, including 50 Nobel laureates (yes, he has counted). . . . Pais seems to have met just about everyone important in shaping modern physics. He draws finely observed vignettes of a host of superstars. . . . "--Graham Farmelo, New Scientist
"Written in a straightforward, unpretentious, literate manner, A Tale of Two Continents is an engrossing and gripping document."--Silvan S. Schweber, Physics Today
"Mr. Pais was not just an internationally acclaimed physicist; he was also a Jewish survivor of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. . . . [He] includes some lively and evocative sketches of the famous people he knew over the decades. . . . [H]is book has many gripping, informative and charming passages, . . . a valuable addition to our store of 20th-century lives."--Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
"The author of a highly regarded biography of Albert Einstein sums up his own life. . . chronicle[s] his passage through momentous times, describing his experiences as a privileged onlooker. . . . Authoritative and valuable historically."--Kirkus Review
Prologue
BOOK THE FIRST: EUROPE
1 Descent
2 Early Years
3 Bachelor's Degrees in Amsterdam
4 Of Music, Films, and Other Diversions
5 First Contacts with Zionism
6 Utrecht: M.Sc. and Ph.D.
7 War
8 Occupation of Holland
9 Sho'ah
10 Wartime Experiences of My Family and Me
11 War's Aftermath: A Last Lesson in Dutch History
12 My Final Months in Holland
13 Getting to Know Niels Bohr
BOOK THE SECOND: AMERICA
14 It Is Time to Speak of America
15 The State of the Union 1946: The U.S.,
Princeton, and the Institute for Advanced Study
16 Enter Einstein and Other Interesting New Acquaintances
17 In Which Oppenheimer Becomes Director and
I a Long-Term Member of the Institute
18 Oppenheimer: Glimpses of a Complex Man
19 My Career Unfolds
20 About Unexpected New Physics, Old Friends, and a Grand Tour
21 Of the Beginnings of Theoretical Particle
Physics, Some Baseball History, and Two Long Summer Journeys
22 Of Symmetry and My Longest Journey
23 Greenwich Village, American Citizenship, and the Oppenheimer Affair
24 Of My Best Work and a Year's Leave of
Absence. Death of Einstein
25 My First Trip to Russia and My First
Marriage
26 Enter Joshua. The 1950s, Concluded
27 Times of Great Change: The Early 1960s
28 Changing My Workplace from Princeton to New York
29 What Befell Me in the Late 1960s
30 The 1970s
31 A Career Change
32 My Final Years--So Far
33 Approaching the Millennium
Notes and References
Onomasticon
Detective Ritual 06
Dr. Mortis
Alan Moore Storyteller