István Hargittai

I tried but this book isn’t for me. I think I’d rather read five separate books about the scientists being profiled here. It’s not a slight against the writer, just my personal preference.

The lives of five world-famous physicist who fled to the USA, lived and worked there. And they changed the world. Those martians were: Tódor Kármán, Jenő, Wigner, Leó Szilárd, János Neumann and Ede Teller.

Very interesting, the lives of these men is well told and reveals their very human qualities and flaws. Some of the intricacies of physics were lost on me, but the magnitude of their accomplishments and the difficulties in their lives were very comprehensible. Much of their lives were spent in uncertainty, even fear, coping with anti-semitism, wars, and the consequences of their work-the Atom bomb and beyond.