The Merely Personal

"Ever since I began studying science,” Jeremy Bernstein writes, “I have been struck by its human characteristics. Yet in his autobiography, Einstein said that he took up science precisely as an alternative to the ‘merely personal.’ In fact there is no alternative to the ‘merely personal,’ as Einstein’s own life demonstrates.” Thus the title of Mr. Bernstein’s sparkling new collection of essays, which represent much of his work over the past ten years. When he first began writing about science for the New Yorker years ago, its editor, William Shawn, suggested that Mr. Bernstein write about science as a form of human experience. This he has been doing with great aplomb and success since 1960—his book Einstein, for example, was nominated for a National Book Award. In The Merely Personal, his essays range from an attempt to explain the quantum theory through the use of Tom Stoppard’s play Hapgood, to a critical review of recent books on Einstein. They describe Mr. Bernstein’s encounters with such people as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Bobby Fischer, and W. H. Auden. Readers will find an explanation of the origin of Newton’s contention that he stood on the shoulders of giants; a description of a surreal encounter with the logician Kurt Gödel; a discussion of computer chess; and an analysis of the attempts of the Germans to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Most of all they will find a relentlessly curious mind at work, its product conveyed in a compulsively readable style.