Joseph Rotblat
For their efforts to diminish the role of nuclear arms in politics and to eliminate such arms, nuclear physicist Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs were jointly awarded the Nobel prize for peace in 1995. So it should come as no surprise that Rotblat has chosen Martin Rees鈥檚 warning of humankind鈥檚 capacity for self-destruction through the misapplication of technology in Our Final Century (Heinemann) as his 鈥渇avourite title鈥� this Christmas. Rotblat says it is 鈥渁 most exciting book, full of ideas, encompassing a very wide range of contemporary problems with which we should all be concerned鈥�.
Steven Weinberg (revisited)
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Nobel laureate in physics Steven Weinberg has been knee-deep in military history books, including translations of original sources about the battle of Hastings by Guy, Bishop of Amiens, and William of Poitiers. He has been 鈥渢rying to figure whether Norman knights charged with a 鈥榗ouched lance鈥� at the battle of Hastings鈥� 鈥� as research for an article about the history of war for the New York Review of Books. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 reading for a purpose,鈥� he says.
On the lighter side, he has been reading novels by Barry Unsworth, whose Sacred Hunger (Penguin) was joint winner of the Booker prize in 1992. 鈥淚 find him delightful,鈥� says Weinberg.
Paul Crutzen
The 1995 Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded to three atmospheric chemists for their work on the ozone layer: one is Paul Crutzen. Since then, Crutzen has been reading about another side of the ozone issue 鈥� the 鈥渦ltimately successful, international legal fights, about which I knew rather little鈥� 鈥� in Edward Parson鈥檚 Protecting the Ozone Layer (Oxford). He is also reading Albert Einstein鈥檚 Ideas and Opinions (Crown, 1982).
Crutzen grew up in Amsterdam, close to Rembrandt鈥檚 house, so he鈥檚 enjoying Steven Nadler on the relationship between Rembrandt, Judaism, and Jewish Amsterdam in the 17th century, in Rembrandt鈥檚 Jews (Chicago): 鈥淎 remarkable period in Dutch history鈥�.