"Well, Doc, You're In": Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe

304 Pages·2022·18.117 MB·English

by  David Kaiser (editor)

“WELL, DOC, YOU’RE IN”

“WELL, DOC, YOU’RE IN”
Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe
EDITED BY DAVID KAISER
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any elec-
tronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage
and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided com-
ments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential for
establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with grati-
tude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.
This book was set in Scala Pro and Scala Sans by Westchester Publishing Ser vices.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978- 0- 262- 04734- 0
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
David Kaiser
1 That Secret Club of Heretics and Rebels 21
Amanda Gefter
2 Calculation and Reckoning: Navigating Science, War,
and Guilt 47
William Thomas
3 The First Apprentice 71
David Kaiser
4 A Frog among Birds: Dyson as a Mathematical Physicist 105
Robbert Dijkgraaf
5 Single Stage to Saturn: Project Orion, 1957– 1965 143
George Dyson
6 Dyson, Warfare, and the Jasons 177
Ann Finkbeiner
7 A Warm Little Pond: Dyson and the Origins of Life 203
Ashutosh Jogalekar
CONTENTS
8 The Cosmic Seer 233
Caleb Scharf
9 A Bouquet of Dyson 257
Jeremy Bernstein
Coda: Not the End 271
Esther Dyson
Acknowledgments 279
About the Authors 281
Index 285
vi

INTRODUCTION
DAVID KAISER
“Here is a scientist who can really write,” the physicist Hans Bethe
observed in his review of Freeman Dyson’s first book, Disturbing the
Universe, in 1979.1 Dyson, who died on February 28, 2020, at the age of
ninety- six, was a mathematician and theoretical physicist by training, but
he became best known to most people as a writer. His first book, a poi-
gnant autobiographical reflection, was a finalist for the National Book
Award; he went on to publish ten more. For twenty- five years, he was
a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, writing on a daz-
zling range of authors and topics—f rom Daniel Kahneman to Michael
Crichton, the history of the Galápagos to the concept of infinity. His last
piece, on “the outcast genius” and astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, appeared
six weeks before his death.2
Even by physicists’ standards, Dyson’s thinking was strikingly uncon-
strained by the here and now. One moment he was delving into the eso-
terica of quantum theory, and the next, he was speculating about the
logistics of alien civilizations. In the 1950s, he joined the team develop-
ing a new type of nuclear reactor, which included several novel safety
features; soon after, he was designing a spacecraft propelled by nuclear