QED and the Men Who Made It

In the 1930s, physics was in crisis. There seemed to be no way to reconcile Einsteins theory of relativity with the new quantum mechanics theory, which had been developed in the 1920s. Several approaches had been attempted, but they had all failed. In the post-World War II period, several scientists rose to the challenge, developing a calculable version of quantum electrodynamics (QED), perhaps the most successful theory in physics. Freeman Dyson and Richard Feynman were two of those famous physicists who were instrumental in formulating QED—and each one of them would go on to win the Nobel Prize for their efforts. Silvan Schweber blends technical debates with engaging human vignettes in his biography of these four physicists, stating that their work was an important part of a major turning point in physical science.