Review by Choice Review
Written by George Johnson, a science writer for the New York Times, this is a biography of Murray Gell-Mann, the Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist. The 16 chapters follow Gell-Mann from his childhood days in New York City as a "boy genius" through his college and graduate work at Yale and M.I.T., respectively, and on through his spectacular career as a theoretical physicist. In the process, Johnson's treatment nicely balances Gell-Mann's brilliance, with an honest look at some of his unfortunate character traits. Gell-Mann made significant contributions to the field of quantum electrodynamics, for which he received the Nobel Prize, and was one of several physicists who made very substantial contributions to the development of what is known as the Standard Model of particle physics. Fairly extensive glossary of technical terms; detailed collected footnotes. The book is well written and should interest a wide range of readers ranging from practicing particle physicists to interested lay persons. Recommended as a desirable addition to the library of any college or university. General readers; undergraduates through professionals. R. L. Stearns; Vassar College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Because of the theoretical subtlety required to probe the heart of the atom, Johnson faces a daunting task in giving nonspecialist readers an appreciation of the rare genius of Gell-Mann. He meets that challenge by weaving his explanations of Gell-Mann's scientific triumphs into an engrossingly human drama, taut with emotions universally recognized. Many readers will give up trying to fathom Gell-Mann's theory of quarks, with its uxyls and strangeness coefficients, but they will still recognize that only a theory of rare power could have excited the global controversy that Johnson lucidly chronicles. Nor will readers need special expertise to infer how brilliance and ambition must fuse to win a scientist the Nobel Prize while still in his thirties. But Johnson gives us the man entire, not just a bare intellect: he plumbs the passions that made Gell-Mann an arrogant egotist who loved to bully colleagues, yet left him insecure and vulnerable to making mistakes. Johnson's portrait exposes Gell-Mann as a neglectful father long estranged from his children, but also reveals his tenderness as a husband, devastated by the death of his first wife and unstinting in his generosity to his "expensive" second wife. Only a truly exceptional biographer could have outlined with such deftness this complex figure, who glimpsed natural harmonies hidden to all but a very few while still enmeshed in the daily contradictions that vex us all. --Bryce Christensen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm aren't just states of mind: they're kinds of quarks, the mind-bending, omnipresent sub-subatomic particles co-discovered and named in the early 1960s by the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann. New York Times science reporter Johnson (Fire in the Mind) has written a brisk, accessible life of the Nobel-winning scientist, who will turn 70 next month. Gell-Mann grew up poor in New York City, the son of Eastern European Jews. Still in his teens, he attended Yale and MIT, and soon afterward won notice for his work on cosmic rays. Gell-Mann followed up his insights about quarks with important work at Caltech and elsewhere on superstrings, supergravity and mathematical complexity. His adult life has had its hardships: his daughter gave much of her life to an American Stalinist fringe group, and his wife died of cancer in 1981. (He's since remarried.) Johnson makes clear that Gell-Mann's direct, sometimes arrogant manner could make him difficult to work with; admired by physicists, he failed to achieve the wider fame of his media-friendly colleague, the late Richard Feynman. While Johnson relates such troubles sympathetically, the story of Gell-Mann's life is in large part the story of his and others' researches and discoveries. Explaining difficult fields like quantum physics, Johnson uses as many analogies, and as little math, as he can, while trying always to give some picture of what scientific problems Gell-Mann and his fellow scientists solved. The result is a careful if colloquial biography, perfect for readers who aren'tÄor aren't yetÄworking scientists. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
One of the most notable physicists of the Nuclear Age, Murray Gell-Mann worked closely with Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynmann, and others to help unlock the secrets of the subatomic world. In 1969, he received a Nobel prize for his work on the interaction of elementary particles and their classification. Now New York Times science writer Johnson (Fire in the Mind) has written a well-balanced biography of this renowned scientist's complex life and work. Noting Gell-Mann's idiosyncrasies, his faults, and his accomplishments, Johnson follows his subject through his passions (nature and conservation, art collection, anthropology, ornithology, and linguistics), his struggles with chronic writer's block, and his incredible scientific achievements. While it is necessarily dense in parts, this book is free of mathematics and is accessible to the advanced lay reader. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.ÄJames Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Part biography, part textbook on quarks and other phenomena discovered by one of the great particle physicists of the twentieth century. Johnson (a New York Times science writer) first introduces us to Murray Gell-Mann in the present day, as a likable retiree living in Santa Fe. He sets his personal experiences with Gell-Mann against Gell-Mann the legend, cutting colleagues down to size if their viewpoints didn't coincide with his own, or calling them by unpleasant and sarcastic nicknames. Gell-Mann's broad scope of knowledge started in his youth in New York City, where he would visit museums, the zoo, anywhere he could learn about the world around him. In school young Murray was always eager to show off his knowledge, winning a spelling bee at the age of seven. At fourteen, he won a scholarship to Yale, moving from there to MIT, where he reveled in the unsolved problems in physics. It was these problems, theories about particles yet to be discovered, that Gell-Mann would spend his career solving. Johnson is not afraid to present these theories in great detail, giving crystal-clear descriptions of some of the most abstract and convoluted ideas in physics. Nor is he afraid to delve into the personal side of Gell-Mann, including his relationship with his colleague Richard Feynman, a friendship at times strained by the fame that Feynman achieved from his best-selling book of autobiographical anecdotes. Gell-Mann wanted to write one, too, but for all his knowledge he was crippled by a lifelong case of writer's block. The limited success of his autobiography once it was finished presumably led to Strange Beauty. A must-read for anyone studying physics or its history, and for others not afraid to swim in the sometimes deep and murky waters of cutting-edge science.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
