Infinite in All Directions: Gifford Lectures Given at Aberdeen, Scotland April--November 1985 » (First Perennial Edition)

Freeman Dyson spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was born in England and worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force in World War 2. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1945 with a BA degree in mathematics. He went on to Cornell University as a graduate student in 1947 and worked with Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman and went on to be appointed as a professor. His most useful contribution to science was the unification of the three versions of quantum electrodynamics invented by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. Dyson is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 2000 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for progress in Religion. In addition to his scientific work, Professor Dyson has found time for raising five daughters, a son and a step-daughter.

For the 1988 published version (Harper and Row), physicist Dyson changed the title from In Praise of Diversity to emphasize his core message of the unbounded prodigality of life and the consequent unboundedness of human destiny. His new introduction seems to be for Perennial's 1989 edition. About half of the 17 lectures are about the diversity of the natural world, and the others about the diversity of the human reactions to it. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR