112 Mercer Street

Book excerpt: In 1944, Albert Einstein invited three close friends, giants of contemporary science and thought, to his home at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey to discuss science, philosophy, and world events.These were Bertrand Russell, the incomparable logician, philosopher, and humanist; Wolfgang Pauli, the great physicist; and Kurt Godel, the groundbreaking logician.Using these historic meetings as a starting point, Burton Feldman provides a highly original examination of these four very outsized personalities as friends, colleagues and rivals-particularly the stubborn and supremely self-confident Einstein and the aristocratic Russell.Masterfully researched, this accessible book illuminates the feelings of these great men about the world of science that was then beginning to pass them by, and about the dawning atomic age that terrified them all.