Scholar in Turmoil: A Autobiography of Eugene Wigner

Author: Eugene P. Wigner, Andrew S. Wightman, translated by Guan Hong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-09-01
Features: This book is an oral autobiography of Wigner in his later years. Wigner spent his life wandering between Europe and the Americas, personally experiencing the horrors of World War II. Written in a candid and humble style, the book describes his youth in Hungary, his student years in Berlin, and his involvement in the development of the atomic bomb after moving to the United States before World War II. The book fully reflects Wigner's love for Hungarian culture, his hatred for the Nazis and Hitler, his longing for peace, and his pursuit of science. At the same time, it vividly portrays his interactions with great physicists such as Einstein, Fermi, and Dirac, as well as with equally brilliant scholars from Hungary like Szilard, von Neumann, and Teller. From this book, readers can not only appreciate Wigner's outstanding achievements as a scientist but also deeply understand this "scholar in turmoil" who was forced to leave his homeland.