A month or so ago, I bought a used copy of Disturbing the Universe by Freeman Dyson.
I started reading it a week or so ago and discovered that it is a personal and scientific memoir. Dyson turns out to be, and I am not surprised by that, a lucid and entertaining writer. He gives a very personal view of the development of Physics in the aftermath of the Manhattan Project.
Dyson wasn’t part of it but in 1947 and ‘48 he interacted with the main protagonist’s, Hans Bethe, Robert Oppenheimer and Dick Feynmann. He also knew and contended intellectually with Julian Schwinger, who provided a mathematical interpretation of QED to match Feynmann’s physical interpretation and conception. Dyson is writing demonstrates for me the clarity of his thinking because it is so easy to follow and read. Am I being lulled into the notion that I understand? I certainly feel that I have a better comprehension what QED is about and why Feynmann was such a dominant influence on modern non-Einsteinian Physics.
