The 20th century has boasted a greater number of top-notch physicists than any prior epoch in history. The 21st century, and any future century beyond it, will be hard-pressed to match the level of scientific genius presented by the 20th. Names such as John Archibald Wheeler, Eugene Wigner, Paul Dirac, Max Planck, Louis deBroglie, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Roger Penrose, Freeman Dyson and Stephen Hawking have set the standard for scientific and intellectual excellence.
Another name which belongs in this esteemed list is that of Erwin Schroedinger. Schroedinger influenced the field of quantum mechanics perhaps more than any other single scientific contributor of modern times. Here, Walter Moore has compiled his unique story so that all may have access to the life and times of this extraordinary man.
Moore's writing style is easily up to the task of keeping the interest of the reader. He does an excellent job of tracing Schroedinger's academic career as he obtained posts at the university of Jena, university of Zurich, university of Berlin [he was the hand-picked successor of none other than Max Planck], university of Oxford, university of Graz (Austria), the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the university of Vienna. Schroedinger was also offered professorships at 2 US universities as well (university of Wisconsin, Madison and Princeton university), but declined both. Moore does an exquisite job in his disinterment of all the facts, personal factors and politics behind S' decisions to transfer (or not to transfer) from post to post. Moore's elucidation of S' relationship with the Nazis (who called him "Politically unreliable") is exemplery, as is his coverage of the friendships and correspondence that S shared with his peers.
What makes Moore's biography superb is that he equally concentrates on S' personal life as well as his intellectual endeavors. Moore gives an authentic and upfront treatment of S' rather bizarre love arrangements. Like the composer Richard Wagner, S had many affairs with the wives of his friends (a few of which resulted in children), as well as myriad young woman just reaching adulthood. Moore offers a credible psycho-analysis of the motivations for his sexual conquests, and comparisons to the behavior of the persona in Nabokov's "Lolita" which Moore alludes to are certainly warranted.
Like all good modern biographies, the book is filled with plenty of pictures of the personages and locales which were integrated within S' life [including the immortal assemblage of the 1927 (5th) Solvay conference]. Also, for the mathematically inclined amongst us, the work is filled with a good many of the equations that S developed and worked on during his lifetime. The good news, for those of us not so mathematically inclined, is that an understanding of them is not essential to a generic comprehension of what S accomplished.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for all fans of and admirers of this great individual. People who have an interest in the history of science, physics in the 20th century, the philosophy of science and the psychology of the genius will also gain a great deal by reading this biographical treatise. Einstein once wrote S that "...you are my closest brother and your brain runs so similarly to mine" (p 426). This is a splendid illustration of just how pivotal he was to the history of science. In this biography, Moore set out to tell his story. HE DID!! HE DID!!
