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Jeremy Bernstein (born December 31, 1929, in
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
) is an American
theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...
and popular science writer.


Early life

Bernstein's parents, Philip S. Bernstein, a
Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
rabbi, and Sophie Rubin Bernstein named him after the biblical
Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern:   , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewi ...
, the subject of his father's masters thesis. Philip's parents were immigrants from Lithuania, while Sophie was of Russian-Jewish descent. The family moved from Rochester to
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
during World War II, when his father became head of all the Jewish chaplains in the armed forces.


Education and career

Bernstein studied at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1951, masters in 1953, and Ph.D. in 1955, on electromagnetic properties of
deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being protium, or hydrogen-1). The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one n ...
, under
Julian Schwinger Julian Seymour Schwinger (; February 12, 1918 – July 16, 1994) was a Nobel Prize winning American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED), in particular for developing a relativistically invariant ...
. As a theoretical physicist, he worked on elementary particle physics and cosmology. A summer spent in Los Alamos led to a position at the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
. In 1962 he became a faculty member at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, t ...
, moving to become a professor of physics at
Stevens Institute of Technology Stevens Institute of Technology is a Private university, private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Founded in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solely ded ...
in 1967, a position that he continues to hold as
professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
."Jeremy Bernstein,"
Encyclopædia Britannica
He has held adjunct or visiting positions at the
Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at th ...
,
CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
,
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique."Jeremy Bernstein (member bio)"
at Edge.org
He was also involved in Project Orion, investigating the potential for
nuclear pulse propulsion Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It originated as Project ''Orion'' with support from DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw ...
for use in space travel.


Popular writing

Bernstein is a popular science writer and profiler of scientists. He was a staff writer for
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
from 1961 to 1995, authoring scores of articles. He has also written regularly for
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
, the
New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, and
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
, among others. His books include "Physicists on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society" (2010), "Nuclear Weapons: What You Need to Know" (2010), "Quantum Leaps" (2009), "Hitler's Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall" (2000), "In the Himalayas: Journeys through Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan" (1996), and others, more than 15 books in all. "The Life It Brings", an autobiographical memoir, was published in 1986. Bernstein's biographical profiles of physicists, including
Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...
,
Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize ...
,
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
,
John Stewart Bell John Stewart Bell FRS (28 July 1928 – 1 October 1990) was a physicist from Northern Ireland and the originator of Bell's theorem, an important theorem in quantum physics regarding hidden-variable theories. In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Phy ...
and others, are able to draw on the experiences of personal acquaintance. Bernstein's latest publication is "A Bouquet of Dyson: and Other Reflections on Science and Scientists" (2018)


Books

*''Elementary Particles and Their Currents'', Freeman, 1968 *''Kinetic Theory in the Expanding Universe'', Cambridge University Press, 1988 *''Cosmological Constants – Papers in Modern Cosmology'' (with
Gerald Feinberg Gerald Feinberg (27 May 1933 – 21 April 1992) was a Columbia University physicist, futurist and populist author. He spent a year as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, and two years at the Brookhaven Laboratories. Feinberg went to Br ...
), Columbia University Press, 1986 *''
Plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits ...
– a History of the World's Most Dangerous Element'', Joseph Henry Press, 2007 *''Nuclear Weapons – What You Need to Know'', Cambridge University Press, 2010 *''The Life it Brings – One Physicist's Beginnings'', Ticknor and Field, Penguin, 1987 *''A Theory of Everything'' (Essays), Springer, 1996 *''Quantum Profiles'' Conversations with physicists
John Stewart Bell John Stewart Bell FRS (28 July 1928 – 1 October 1990) was a physicist from Northern Ireland and the originator of Bell's theorem, an important theorem in quantum physics regarding hidden-variable theories. In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Phy ...
and
John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in ...
, and Einstein's correspondence with
Michele Besso Michele Angelo Besso ( Riesbach, 25 May 1873 – Geneva, 15 March 1955) was a Swiss-Italian engineer best known for working closely with Albert Einstein. Biography Besso was born in Riesbach from a family of Italian Jewish (Sephardi) descent. ...
), Princeton University Press, 1990 *''Three Degrees Above Zero – Bell Labs in the Information Age'', Scribners, 1984 *''A Physicist on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society'', Springer, 2008 *''Albert Einstein and the Frontiers of Physics'', Oxford University Press, 1996 *''Science Observed – Essays Out of My Mind'', Basic Books, 1982 *''Cranks, Quarks and the Cosmos – Writings on Science'', Basic Books, 1993 *''The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists'', Ivan Dee, 2001 *''Oppenheimer – Portrait of an Enigma'', Ivan Dee, 2004 *''Hans Bethe – Prophet of Energy'', Basic Books, 1980 *''Hitler's Uranium Club – The Secret Recordings of
Farm Hall A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...
'' (with David C. Cassidy),
American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...
, 1996 *''Analytical Engine – Computers Past, Present and Future'', Random House, 1964 *''A Comprehensible World: On Modern Science and its Origin'', Random House, 1967 *''Einstein'', Viking Press 1973, Penguin Books, 1976 *''Secrets of the Old One: Albert Einstein 1905'', Copernicus Books, 2006 *''Experiencing Science'', Basic Books, 1978 *''Modern Physics'' (with Paul Fishbane, Stephen Gasiorowicz), Prentice Hall, 2000 *''Tenth Dimension: an Informal History of High Energy Physics'', McGraw Hill, 1989 *''Quantum Leaps'', Belknap Press, 2009; 2011 pbk edition
''A Palette of Particles'', Harvard University Press, 2013
*''A Chorus of Bells and Other Scientific Inquiries'', World Scientific, 2014 *''A Bouquet of Numbers and Other Scientific Offerings'', World Scientific, 2016 *''A Bouquet of Dyson and Other Reflections on Science and Scientists'', World Scientific, 2018


Media appearances

* ''To Mars by A-Bomb: The Secret History of Project Orion'' (BBC, 2003) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1039992


References


External links


Scientific publications of Jeremy Bernstein
on
INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernstein, Jeremy 1929 births American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent 21st-century American physicists People associated with CERN Harvard University alumni Jewish American scientists Jewish physicists Living people New York University faculty Writers from Rochester, New York Scientific American people Stevens Institute of Technology faculty The Atlantic (magazine) people The New Yorker people Scientists from Rochester, New York Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American Jews