The Great Atom Debate

“Good storytelling… Halpern is nicely inclusive in describing the scientists whose work preceded Mach’s and Boltzmann’s, as well as in reporting the consequences of both scientists’ discoveries.”–Library Journal
“A truly fun dual biography…that should be of interest even to people who don’t care a whit about physics but love a good story, especially one showcasing two fascinating, driven characters.”–Forbes
“Halpern delivers a solid account of two Austrian physicists who famously debated the existence of atoms in the late 19th century… Halpern broadens the intriguing intellectual history, incorporating figures such as Albert Einstein, Lise Meitner, and Ernest Rutherford, while keeping Mach and Boltzmann at the center of his narrative. It’s an accessible look at a critical scientific era.”–Publishers Weekly
“The Great Atom Debate gives a fascinating account of the roles Ernst Mach and Ludwig Boltzmann played in the establishment of modern physics. Mach and Boltzmann had different personalities and different philosophies of how physics is to be done. But out of their heated debates grew the physics that now passes so many demanding experimental checks. We are led to wonder what philosophy will be behind the next great scientific advance to even better physics.”–P. James E. Peebles, Nobel laureate and author of Cosmology’s Century
“The Great Atom Debate is the extraordinary physics story you didn’t know you needed: A gripping, meticulously researched history of two scientists’ struggle, both intellectual and personal, to dissolve the boundaries between human experience and the microscopic underpinnings of reality itself.”–Caleb Scharf, author of The Giant Leap
“If in some cataclysm all scientific knowledge were destroyed and only one sentence passed to the next generations, wondered Richard Feynman, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? His conclusion? Everything is made of atoms. The riveting story of how this key scientific fact was established–not to mention the tragic human cost of proving it–is brilliantly told by Paul Halpern in his impressively researched and elegantly written book.”–Marcus Chown, author of A Crack in Everything

Paul Halpern is a professor of physics at Saint Joseph’s University and the author of nineteen popular science books, including Flashes of Creation, The Quantum Labyrinth, Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat, Synchronicity, and The Allure of the Multiverse. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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