Leopold Infeld

A description of the author's collaboration with Albert Einstein in Princeton, and his journey from the ghetto in Cracow, Poland, to the universities in Lwow, Cambridge, Princeton and Toronto. Leopold Infeld was not only a scientist, but a fighter for world peace who was against his will forced to join the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War. He was also a loving husband and father, and a tireless promoter of young physicists starting up on their own scientific quests in post-war Poland.

Leopold Infeld was one of the nine eminent scientists who, together with Albert Einstein, signed Bertrand Russell's famous letter warning that in this nuclear age, only a ban on war itself could save this planet (July, 1955). Infeld was born in the Jewish ghetto of Cracow, Poland in 1898, and this autobiography contains a vivid description of this long-since-vanished world. He was assistant to and then a scientific collaborator with Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (1936-1938), and this collaboration continued for twelve years while Infeld was at the University of Toronto. In 1938 he wrote a book together with Albert Einstein that became a number one bestseller, The Evolution of Physics. Infeld was lecturer and then Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Toronto from 1938--1950. From 1945-1950 he gave many lectures all over Canada on the elementary physics of the atom bomb, warning that Russia would soon have the bomb and urging that the short period of U.S. monopoly be used constructively, for peace. In 1950 he left Canada to become Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Warsaw as well as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at that university, where he remained until 1967, the year before he died.

Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld explain the dramatic changes which the science of physics underwent between the time of Isaac Newton and the 20th century.With some 80 illustrations, the authors embark on a lively and plain-spoken account of scientific principles, pledging in the preface to embark on a simple conversation with the reader. The struggle of the human mind in understanding and explaining the various physical phenomena of the world and universe resulted in a succession of theories as centuries passed. Successive improvements of equipment for experimentation and advent of the scientific method led to better measurements of physical phenomena.Since this book seeks to explain physics for the general population, it contains no advanced mathematics. Instead, the authors rely on numerous drawings and several photographs of relevant phenomena. Explanations are accomplished with examples of real world objects; cars on the roads, or rollercoasters in the theme park, being relied upon to explain aspects of velocity and motion. More complex aspects of the science, such as quantum mechanics and the attributes of heat, are described in simpler terms and with use of analogy.