Skip to main content

Schrödinger in Oxford - David Clary ***

There have been a number of biographies ofAustrian quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger, but here the focus is on the handful of years that Schrödinger was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.  There is an introductory section beforehand, plus a chapter on his move to what would become his permanent home of Dublin and one on his legacy - but it is Schrödinger's time in Oxford that is at the heart of this book: unsettling years both in world affairs leading up to the Second World War and in physics as classical ideas were turned on their head. David Clary, a chemistry professor and former president of Magdalen College is perhaps the ideal person to cover this topic.

Don't expect lots of details on quantum physics - this is very much a biography, rather than a science book with biographical sprinklings. However, what you will find is a level of detail that simply can't be found elsewhere, some of it delightful. So, as a random example, we are told according to Magdalen College tradition, after the 1933 formal dinner welcoming Schrödinger as a Fellow, he was weighed on college scales in the Senior Common Room, coming in at 10 stone 9 pounds. Apparently such weighing takes place 'on special occasions or when the Fellows are feeling especially happy, perhaps after some fine wine at dinner from the voluminous College cellar.' Schrödinger re-occurs in the weighing book in 1934, 1938 and 1948 - we are told that 'his weight hardly changed over this 15-year period'.

Clary goes on to describe other entrants in the book from T. E. Lawrence of Arabia and J. R. R. Tolkien to Harold Wilson and Dorothy Hodgkin. Throughout, there are engaging quotes and small details like this that bring alive Schrödinger's life during the period. Clary is strong on the academic aspects of Schrödinger's time in Oxford - which was arguably both positive and frustrating. Clary quotes Schrödinger's wife Anny, for example as saying 'they gave him a high salary, but he had no duties whatsoever... The scientific centre was Cambridge, of course, and not Oxford.' Although Clary gives reasonable coverage of Schrödinger's life outside work, he plays down the scientist's relationship with Hilde March, which would become more open when she moved in with Schrödinger and his wife on their move to Ireland. Although elsewhere it has been suggested that part of Schrödinger's difficulty in fitting in at Oxford was his unconventional relationship, Clary tells us it was not an issue that was significantly discussed in the college (pointing out that this implies it wasn't given much weight, as gossip is not exactly uncommon at high table).

In the end, whether or not this book will interest you depends on how much you want to get into the minutiae of academic life Schrödinger experienced during this period. As such, it would be a great research book for anyone writing a wider popular science title, or who has interest in what went on at Magdalen College back then. It is also worth saying that Clary's writing style is more readable than it is fussy and academic. However, this degree of detail, with many lengthy quotes from letters and documents, is not what you would call reading for entertainment. An interesting oddity.

Paperback:   


Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Roger Highfield - Stephen Hawking: genius at work interview

Roger Highfield OBE is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger has visiting professorships at the Department of Chemistry, UCL, and at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the Medical Research Council and Longitude Committee. He has written or co-authored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. His latest title is Stephen Hawking: genius at work . Why science? There are three answers to this question, depending on context: Apollo; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; and, finally, Nullius in verba . Growing up I enjoyed the sciencey side of TV programmes like Thunderbirds and The Avengers but became completely besotted when, in short trousers, I gazed up at the moon knowing that two astronauts had paid it a visit. As the Apollo programme unfolded, I became utterly obsessed. Today, more than half a century later, the moon landings are
Post a Comment
Read more

Space Oddities - Harry Cliff *****

In this delightfully readable book, Harry Cliff takes us into the anomalies that are starting to make areas of physics seems to be nearing a paradigm shift, just as occurred in the past with relativity and quantum theory. We start with, we are introduced to some past anomalies linked to changes in viewpoint, such as the precession of Mercury (explained by general relativity, though originally blamed on an undiscovered planet near the Sun), and then move on to a few examples of apparent discoveries being wrong: the BICEP2 evidence for inflation (where the result was caused by dust, not the polarisation being studied),  the disappearance of an interesting blip in LHC results, and an apparent mistake in the manipulation of numbers that resulted in alleged discovery of dark matter particles. These are used to explain how statistics plays a part, and the significance of sigmas . We go on to explore a range of anomalies in particle physics and cosmology that may indicate either a breakdown i
Post a Comment
Read more

Splinters of Infinity - Mark Wolverton ****

Many of us who read popular science regularly will be aware of the 'great debate' between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920 over whether the universe was a single galaxy or many. Less familiar is the clash in the 1930s between American Nobel Prize winners Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton over the nature of cosmic rays. This not a book about the nature of cosmic rays as we now understand them, but rather explores this confrontation between heavyweight scientists. Millikan was the first in the fray, and often wrongly named in the press as discoverer of cosmic rays. He believed that this high energy radiation from above was made up of photons that ionised atoms in the atmosphere. One of the reasons he was determined that they should be photons was that this fitted with his thesis that the universe was in a constant state of creation: these photons, he thought, were produced in the birth of new atoms. This view seems to have been primarily driven by re
Post a Comment
Read more