Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb

Exhaustively detailed yet eminently readable, this is an important book.Publishers Weekly, starred review Cassidy does not so much exculpate Heisenberg as explain him, with a transparency that makes this biography a pleasure to read.Los Angeles Times Well crafted and readable . . . [Cassidy] provides a nuanced and compelling account of Heisenberg's life.The Harvard Book Review In 1992, David C. Cassidy's groundbreaking biography of Werner Heisenberg, Uncertainty, was published to resounding acclaim from scholars and critics. Michael Frayn, in the Playbill of the Broadway production of Copenhagen, referred to it as one of his main sources and "the standard work in English." Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atom Bomb) called it "the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist," and the Los Angeles Times praised it as "an important book. Cassidy has sifted the record and brilliantly detailed Heisenberg's actions." No book that has appeared since has rivaled Uncertainty, now out of print, for its depth and rich detail of the life, times, and science of this brilliant and controversial figure of twentieth-century physics. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg's role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist's personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime. David C. Cassidy is the author of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Einstein and Our World, and Uncertainty.

About the Author :
David C. Cassidy is the author of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Einstein and Our World, and Uncertainty. Professor of Natural Sciences at Hofstra University, he has served as Associate Editor of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein.

Review :
"A fascinating, well-documented biography." --New York Times Book Review "A monumental effort." --New York Review of Books "An excellent piece of science writing. . . . Cassidy does not so much exculpate Heisenberg as explain him, with a transparency that makes this biography a pleasure to read." --Los Angeles Times "A page-turner." --American Scientist "[An] excellent discussion of science, society, and the influence of the individual scientist." --Physics Today "An excellent work in its comprehensiveness and accuracy, and in its success in recreating the personal drama of one of the greatest and most influential scientists of this century." --Times Higher Education "Exhaustively detailed yet eminently readable, this is an important book." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "An excellent follow up on Cassidy's earlier masterwork Uncertainty. Cassidy offers deep insight into Heisenberg's role as a principle founder of quantum mechanics and as the leading German physicist during the WWII years in the quest for atomic energy and weapons." --Benjamin Bederson, physics professor emeritus, New York University, editor-in-chief emeritus of the American Physical Society, and Manhattan Project member "A must-read book about key players in science and world history." --Gerald Holton, research professor of physics and history of science, emeritus, Harvard University, and author of Einstein, History, and Other Passions and coeditor of Einstein for the 21st Century "Cassidy has written the definitive biography of a great and tragic physicist." --Richard Rhodes, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb "An excellent work of scholarship. . . . Cassidy tells this story with nuance and passion." --Mark Walker, author of German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-49 and Nazi Science