The Last Man Who Knew Everything, David N. Schwartz
The Last Man Who Knew Everything, David N. Schwartz
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The Last Man Who Knew Everything
The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age

Author: David N. Schwartz

Narrator: Tristan Morris

Unabridged: 15 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 12/05/2017

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

The definitive biography of the brilliant, charismatic, and very human physicist and innovator Enrico Fermi

In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of classical physics and quantum mechanics, equally at ease with theory and experiment, Fermi truly was the last man who knew everything -- at least about physics. But he was also a complex figure who was a part of both the Italian Fascist Party and the Manhattan Project, and a less-than-ideal father and husband who nevertheless remained one of history's greatest mentors. Based on new archival material and exclusive interviews, The Last Man Who Knew Everything lays bare the enigmatic life of a colossus of twentieth century physics.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Charlene on May 23, 2020

I could read about Fermi over and over and never get tired of it. The Pope of Physics by Gino Segre ended up being one of my favorite books of all time because it went into the physics a lot more, while at the same time simplifying a lot of the concepts. If you are less interested in the science, I......more

Goodreads review by John on February 01, 2018

Here are my thoughts, from the Literary Review: In spite of its title, this is not another book about Thomas Young, the subject of Andrew Robinson’s The Last Man Who Knew Everything (2006). If anyone deserves that description, it is indeed Young, a linguist, classical scholar, translator of the Roset......more

Goodreads review by Howard on February 12, 2018

I learned a lot I didnt know about this amazing scientist, who died in his early 50s but influenced so mn\any, including my other physics hero Dick Feynman......more

Goodreads review by Dick on April 21, 2018

One of Enrico Fermi’s colleagues once referred to the eminent nuclear physicist and Nobel Prize winner by using the words of the book’s title. Fermi grew up in Rome in the early 1900s and showed brilliance as a child prodigy. Just prior to the start of WWII, he escaped Italy’s Mussolini with his fam......more

Goodreads review by Susan O on January 28, 2018

Enrico Fermi was an amazing man, not only in the depth and breadth of his knowledge of physics and his accomplishments, but also in his ability to convey that information as a teacher. Schwartz does an excellent job of giving us not only the details of Fermi's life, but of his science as well. It is......more

Quotes

"Mr. Schwartz deftly conveys the aesthetic beauty of Fermi's insights without getting mired in their minutiae."—Economist

"There have been other accounts of his life, yet David N. Schwartz's new portrait, The Last Man Who Knew Everything, is the first thorough biography to be published since Fermi's death 64 years ago in 1954. Schwartz, working with limited sources, tells the story well...[His] biography adds importantly to the literature of the utterly remarkable men and women who opened up nuclear physics to the world."—New York Times Book Review

"[Schwartz] does an admirable job of explaining the science and provides careful assessments of Fermi's influence... [and illuminates] the human effects of a project that was so urgent yet so terrible in its long-term implications."—Foreign Affairs

"Schwartz's The Last Man Who Knew Everything offers the most comprehensive description of Fermi's work so far, as well as fresh insights into his personality."—Nature

"The Last Man Who Knew Everything manages the neat double trick of making both Fermi and his abstruse work accessible to readers living in the world he did so much to create, for good and ill."—Christian Science Monitor

"An informative and fun read, rich in those anecdotes and tales that...help to elucidate what was driving the work of the giant that Fermi was.... The more mundane aspects of Fermi's life--his fears, vanities and human errors, emerge...from these pages."—Physics World

"David Schwartz's elegant narrative is a formidable achievement, shining a bright light on Enrico Fermi, the most enigmatic physicist of the early atomic era. Schwartz has exhausted the archives and crafted what will certainly stand as the most deeply biographical account of this brilliant scientist's tragically short life." —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

"It is testimony to David N. Schwartz's excellence as a biographer that he can reveal the workaholic Fermi to have been such a fascinatingly complex figure... [Schwartz] excels in a portrayal that is balanced and nuanced, sympathetic but unflinching."—The Spectator (UK)

"A lucid writer who has done his homework, Schwartz...delivers a thoroughly enjoyable, impressively researched account...Never a media darling like Einstein or Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) is now barely known to the public, but few scientists would deny that he was among the most brilliant physicists of his century...A rewarding, expert biography of a giant of the golden age of physics."—Kirkus

"Told in a sure, steady voice, Schwartz's book delivers a scrupulously researched and lovingly crafted portrait of the 'greatest Italian scientist since Galileo.'"—Publishers Weekly

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