Mr Einstein's Secretary by Matthew Reilly

Author:Matthew Reilly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2023-10-09T20:57:36+00:00

The participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference

1. Max Planck, 2. Marie Curie, 3. Paul Dirac, 4. Albert Einstein, 5. Erwin Schrödinger, 6. Arthur Compton, 7. Werner Heisenberg, 8. Niels Bohr.

The main topic for discussion at the Solvay Conference of 1927 was the new atomic science.

To the common man it seemed like sorcery: that out of the smallest particles of matter could come unfathomable amounts of energy.

And these men—and one woman, the formidable and gruff Marie Curie—were the sorcerers.

They spoke in their own exotic language: waves and photons, neutrons and protons, isotopes and atoms; they even debated robustly about ‘uncertainty’ as a concept.

And what an odd band of sorcerers they were.

Skinny or fat, usually bespectacled, many of Jewish origin; they were variously British, German, French and Scandinavian.

Among this already incredible gathering of minds, two figures stood out.

First, Einstein, because of his sheer stature in the field.

The other was Werner Heisenberg.

For one thing he was young, visibly younger than the other participants. He was only 26 then, lean and handsome.

And brilliant.

He was the Wunderkind, the prodigy who had already made a mark by penning his uncertainty principle.

Unfortunately, he was also an arrogant ass. He often seemed enthralled by his own brilliance, to the point where it grated on his fellow geniuses.

Einstein was not yet on board with the uncertainty principle and Heisenberg, ever the confident young upstart, verged on rudeness as he batted away Einstein’s queries with what could only be described as disdain.

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