A thoughtful and informative account of a scientific giant.
A biography focuses on one of the American physicists who confirmed the existence of neutrinos.
In 1956, Fred Reines and Clyde Cowan collaboratively made a discovery that changed the landscape of modern physics. They proved the existence of the neutrino, a subatomic particle so elusive Reines called it “ghostly.” The search for the neutrino was born out of the problem of understanding the decay of neutrons in the nuclei of radioactive atoms. How can a neutron, which has no electrical charge, get converted into an electron and proton, both of which are charged? Some speculated there must be an undetected particle in the mix that has no charge itself and no (or very low) mass. Reines and Cowan devised a way to demonstrate the existence of such particles, which are paradoxically everywhere but all but invisible. For this groundbreaking achievement, Reines would eventually share the Nobel Prize in physics with Martin L. Perl in 1995. (Cowan died in 1974.) Cole chronicles Reines’ extraordinary accomplishment in all its iterations. At one point, Reines thought a nuclear explosion could expose the hidden neutrino, a brilliant, if impractical, hypothesis. The author also charts Reines’ early life (Growing up in a “household environment in which erudition and accomplishment were so highly prized might have intimidated some youngsters”) and an eventfully distinguished career that included working on the Manhattan Project. Cole deftly produces a “mixture of memoir and biography”—he is the younger cousin of the physicist—and, as a result, the entire work is infused with a spirit of loving admiration. Fully accounting for Reines’ brilliance requires a deep dive into some prohibitively technical subject matter, but the author manages it with remarkably accessible lucidity. In addition, he paints a full, rich portrait of Reines’ life that is not merely a catalog of professional achievements, chronicling his musical interests, his evolving thoughts on his own Jewish identity, and his admirable dedication to teaching. For all of his analytic rigor, Reines was at heart an idealist, a feature Cole vividly highlights: “Fred’s belief that science could eventually reveal the underpinnings of all physical mysteries is truly a matter of faith. His idealization of science was rooted in his teenage supposition nearly 40 years earlier that science could also end discrimination and injustice.”
A thoughtful and informative account of a scientific giant.Pub Date: April 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-981-12-3105-6
Page Count: 300
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Co
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he...
The latest from French writer/filmmaker Carrère (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) is an awkward but intermittently touching hybrid of novel and autobiography.
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he describes powerfully. Carrère and his partner, Hélène, then return to Paris—and do so with a mutual devotion that's been renewed and deepened by all they've witnessed. Back in France, Hélène's sister Juliette, a magistrate and mother of three small daughters, has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that crippled her in adolescence. After her death, Carrère decides to write an oblique tribute and an investigation into the ravages of grief. He focuses first on Juliette's colleague and intimate friend Étienne, himself an amputee and survivor of childhood cancer, and a man in whose talkativeness and strength Carrère sees parallels to himself ("He liked to talk about himself. It's my way, he said, of talking to and about others, and he remarked astutely that it was my way, too”). Étienne is a perceptive, dignified person and a loyal, loving friend, and Carrère's portrait of him—including an unexpectedly fascinating foray into Étienne and Juliette's chief professional accomplishment, which was to tap the new European courts for help in overturning longtime French precedents that advantaged credit-card companies over small borrowers—is impressive. Less successful is Carrère's account of Juliette's widower, Patrice, an unworldly cartoonist whom he admires for his fortitude but seems to consider something of a simpleton. Now and again, especially in the Étienne sections, Carrère's meditations pay off in fresh, pungent insights, and his account of Juliette's last days and of the aftermath (especially for her daughters) is quietly harrowing.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9261-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
A fun if overly flamboyant appreciation of a TV giant.
A biography of American late-night television’s biggest star.
Zehme, author of biographies of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner, had a lifelong love of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson. In 1973, at age 15, Zehme was “already a full-blown Carson fanboy.” As a reporter for Rolling Stone, he tried unsuccessfully to secure an interview to coincide with Carson’s 1992 retirement after a 30-year run. In 2002, Zehme, now with Esquire, “gets extended face time” with the star for a piece to mark 10 years since Carson’s departure. Shortly after Carson’s death in 2005, Zehme began work on a biography. The task was overwhelming—“there was always more to be gleaned”—even before Zehme’s 2013 diagnosis of stage 4 colorectal cancer. He died in 2023, having finished only the first three-quarters of this biography. Thomas, a longtime Chicago arts reporter, has completed the book in time for Carson’s 2025 centenary. The result is an admiring work that nonetheless acknowledges the lows as well as the highs of Carson’s life—he had three divorces—and career, from his ill-fated 1955 variety program The Johnny Carson Show, to his 1957-62 stint as host of the ABC game show Who Do You Trust?, to his taking over The Tonight Show from Jack Paar in 1962. It’s easy to tell where Zehme left off and Thomas took over. The tone changes dramatically, from Zehme’s florid style to Thomas’s drier approach. Those florid passages, which make up most of the book, are baroque in the extreme, with lines like, “And so, like sun and moon and oxygen and ionosphere, Johnny Carson was always there, reliable and steadfast.” Despite the purple prose, the result is an entertaining look at not only a unique figure in 20th-century popular culture but also a bygone era in American television.
A fun if overly flamboyant appreciation of a TV giant.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781451645279
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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