True Genius: The life and science of John Bardeen by Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, ISBN 0309084083 Reviewed by Antony Anderson
JOHN BARDEEN was frying eggs one morning when he heard that Walter Brattain, William Shockley and he had won the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics for inventing the transistor in 1947. He dropped the frying pan. At the time, he was developing a theory for superconductivity with Leon Cooper and John Schrieffer at the University of Illinois鈥� a far more interesting topic, he thought, and something that was really worthy of a Nobel prize.
In True Genius Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch show that Bardeen does not fit the popular stereotype of scientific genius. He was more likely to be found picnicking with his family than talking to reporters.
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Bardeen was a notable team builder. Tenacious when it came to attacking problems, he had the gift of breaking a large problem down into smaller, more soluble parts and then reassembling the whole. As a teacher, his habit of stopping to think allowed his students to do so too. Government and industry valued his advice鈥� according to one commentator, it helped Xerox to 鈥渂uild one of the finest industrial laboratories in the world in the fields of organic and disordered solids during the late 1970s鈥�.
To me, the most telling aspect of Bardeen鈥檚 character was his willingness to share the credit with others. For example, he deliberately stayed away from the meeting of the American Physical Society in March 1957 at which the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity was first presented, so that the contribution of his young co-researchers would be recognised. How many engaged in research today would follow his example? His quiet, patient and cooperative approach seems to have paid off: the BCS theory won him another physics Nobel in 1972. He鈥檚 the only person to have won two physics Nobels.
I strongly recommend this biography, not only for the clear picture it gives of Bardeen in the context of his family, friends and colleagues, but also for its analysis of the roots of scientific creativity and genius. It鈥檚 a must for researchers 鈥� and gives the lie to the association of madness and genius.