John R. Gribbin is a British astrophysicist and is a populariser of science. He has not only written many books explaining difficult science concepts in easy language but biographies of many scientists as well. His books are worth reading.
Sometime ago, I came across his book, a biography of Erwin Schrodinger titled 'Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution' and I could not resist it. Schrodinger and Paul Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to Quantum Physics.
Erwin Schrodinger has some special fascination for me as when Megh Nath Saha left physics department of the Allahabad University in 1938, Schrodinger was offered its headship in 1940. Well, he did not join, perhaps he could not come as World War-II was on or chose not to come as he was already at that time in Dublin. But the book has no reference about it.
Schrodinger was a great believer in Hindu Vedantic philosophy and believed that the soul lives in the body and leaves at the time of death. There is another interesting incident about Satyndra Nath Bose and Einstein.
Bose's paper on counting Photon with a new statistical method to arrive at Plank's black body radiation law was rejected by an English journal, he sent it to Einstein to send it for publication if he thought it was worth publishing. Einstein got so excited by the paper that he personally translated it in German and send it for publication and it was duly published in a prestigious German journal.
The book not only deals with the colourful life of Schrodinger (his academic activity increased with his sexual escapades) but also with the history of Quantum Physics. However, in order to enjoy the book, one should have basic knowledge of Quantum Physics and the scientists involved there in. But if one is a science enthusiast then the book is a must reading.
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