I love science. I wish I had had this passion for science when I was 18. Back then I liked science and technology, but definitely didn’t have the drive for knowledge I do now. I seemed to be naive, and I seemed to have a desire for beer and lots of it.
Fast forward a number of years, to about 2004. I started to really get hankering, as the old cartoon says, for some science. I don’t really know what sparked it in me again. Perhaps it was the fact that I was working at a company that offered decent pay post dot-com, but was basically devoid of real computer engineering challenges. Perhaps my mind needed more than what I was getting at work.
I started reading a lot of science non-fiction. One of the first books I picked up in my newly discovered hunger was Hitler’s Scientists. I had just finished reading Hitler’s Pope, and was also interested in more information about that interesting era. Hitler’s Pope had been an great political/religious book. On the other hand, Hitler’s Scientists was an excellent scientific book. The name can fool you for the latter book. While the book did involve several of the scientists that served Germany during WWII, it really covered scientific achievement from the entire era. More in the next paragraph.
I cannot imagine being given a better education on the history of science from 1850 – 1950 than that offered in Hitler’s Scientists. This was an incredible period for science. The names that pop up from that time period are legends in human history, not just science. Hitler’s Scientists covers the major achievements and the environments that surrounded all of the major discoveries of that age, especially in physics. Einstein! Heisenberg! von Braun!
As one would expect, coverage of science focuses on events leading up to, and including, Hitler’s rise to power and eventual fall. The book continues on with chapters on the atomic bombings of Japan, and the US nuclear program post-war.
I cannot recommend this book enough. It is one of my favorites books, and I have consulted it on more than one occasion after lively conversations involving subjects from the book. If you are interested in WWII or in science, you will find this book more than fascinating. Give it a try!
