In addition to his place as a world-famous physicist and mathematician, Freeman Dyson has also long been considered a master of intelligent yet accessible science writing. This book, which explores and celebrates the wonders of scientific method and discovery from antiquity to the present age, is Dyson at his most awe-inspiring and exhilirating.
Freeman Dyson has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taking time off to advise the U.S. government and write books for the general public. He was born in England and worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force during World War II. He came to Cornell University as a graduate student in 1947 and worked with Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman, producing a user-friendly way to calculate the behavior of atoms and radiation. He also worked on nuclear reactors, solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics, and biology, looking for problems where elegant mathematics could be usefully applied. He is the author of the NYRB title, The Scientist as Rebel.
Praise for Dreams of Earth and Sky
“Readers will be delighted by the fascinating insider’s view of the
scientific community and its intersection with the political
establishment.” —Kirkus Reviews
"[Dyson] writes with detailed, admirable conviction.—The New York
Times Book Review
To observe a mind uncommonly endowed with dexterity and knowledge
hop from subject to subject is exhilarating." —Time
"Dreams is just terrific if not staggeringly incandescent. It is
human...His plainspokenness is arresting...Yet very little digging
reveals the spreading roots of his thought process, its complexity,
its great Whitmanesque reach...You could say that he puts his words
where his mouth is, and his romantic, humane heart keeps the
beat.” Peter Lewis, Christian-Science Monitor
“Strikingly original ideas and viewpoints expressed in stylish yet
always lucid prose...No short summary can do justice to the wealth
of imaginative brilliance and contagious enthusiasm of those
visions. They are mind-expanding.”—Frank Wilczek, Physics Today
“Dyson is a rare thinker... The sheer breadth of his thought—and
his ability to cohere this breadth into intelligible wisdom—is
virtually unmatched. Throughout, Dyson remains eloquent and
opinionated.”—B. Mitchell, Choice
Praise for The Scientist as Rebel
“Drawing on [his] instinct for unlikely connections, Dyson has
become of one science’s most eloquent interpreters…. In a science
of unifiers, Dyson prides himself as a diversifier.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Dyson embodies the ideal of the scientist as
iconoclast….Provocative, touching, and always surprising.”
—Wired
“Dyson expresses his precise thinking in prose of crystal clarity,
and readers will be absolutely enthralled by his breadth, his
almost uncanny ability to tie diverse topics together and his many
provocative statements.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Readers will have no difficulty recognizing rebellion of the most
valuable kind in this enlightening collection and will eagerly
engage with it.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“What really fills this book is wisdom—wisdom that helps us
understand how scientists think and work and how science, properly
understood, can help us make better sense of our world.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“Dyson [is], neuron for neuron, one of the most formidably
provocative minds in American life...The bedazzled reader emerges
feeling like he’s been in a metaphysical Maytag on spin cycle—his
perspective on man, God, and the cosmos permanently altered.” —The
Washington Post Book World
“To observe a mind uncommonly endowed with dexterity and knowledge
hop from subject to subject is exhilarating.” —Time
Praise for Disturbing the Universe
“A passionate testament, one of the most remarkable self-portraits
of a scientist that I have ever read...Though this book is meant
primarily for non-scientists, to acquaint them with how a scientist
looks at the world, one does not have to read far to realize that
this is the witness, not of a scientist representing his class, but
of a unique kind of scientist, a man endowed with literary skill,
with a rare capacity for humor and introspection, with a sensitive
understanding of the language of the humanist.” —The New
Republic
Praise for The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet: Tools of
Scientific Revolution
“A most engaging and important book, as accessible as it is
profound.” —Oliver Sacks
“A thoughtful and thought-provoking glimpse into the twenty-first
century...A must-read...Only Dyson could weave together this rich
tapestry, blending ethics, ideology, science, and technology into a
coherent vision of the future.” —Michio Kaku, author of Hyperspace
and Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st
Century
"Physicist Dyson...demonstrates his intellectual breadth, wit, and
iconoclasm in this collection… .his insights, passion, and
knowledge make this collection well worth savoring.” —Publishers
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