Great physicists: the life and times of leading physicists from Galileo to Hawking

Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of
thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper
vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo
and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and
Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman,
Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all
geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly,
dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As
Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of
their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations
with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In
addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by
discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and
others--each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the
section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck
influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner
Heisenberg. Our understanding of the physical world has increased
dramatically in the last four centuries. With Great Physicists, readers
can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.