By Jeremy Bernstein
World Scientific
Hardback: £25
E-book: £19
In this volume of essays, written across a decade, Bernstein covers a breadth of subject matter. The first part, on the foundations of quantum theory, reflects the author’s conversations with the late John Bell, who persuaded him that there is still no satisfactory interpretation of the theory. The second part deals with nuclear weapons, and includes an essay on the creation of the modern gas centrifuge by German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Two shorter sections follow: the first on financial engineering, with a profile of Louis Bachelier, the French mathematician who created the subject at the beginning of the 20th century; the second and final part is on the Higgs boson, and how it is used for generating mass.
