The historian of science Owen Gingerich died on May 28. We’re re-posting this essay, which originally appeared on June 10, 2011, because it involves the author’s personal encounter with him. The references to dates (e.g., “A few months ago”) remain as in the original post. The 16-year-old student has an idea, but she doesn’t have […]
Werner Heisenberg
You probably know this. In August, 1939, Einstein wrote a letter to the American government. German scientists had announced that the energy holding an atom together could be released – in fact, 2.2 pounds-worth of uranium atoms would equal 10,000 tons of TNT. Einstein said this implied a new kind of bomb that Hitler’s government […]
(This post is the first in a two-part series. I adapted it from a keynote address I delivered in the summer of 2010 at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont, where I teach in the MFA Writing program. The essay is part of a collection of talks by Goddard writing faculty that have been collected in […]