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27/4 Spring Bookssc spring books 31), and his invention of the ‘bra’ (the left half account of the same global phenomenon is of an expression contained within a bracket); in a lesser-known book by Laura Fermi, or his referring to transformation theory as Illustrious Immigrants (University of Chicago “my darling”. Press, 1968), which includes physicists, of DAVID NEWTON DAVID And when did Pais first meet Wolfgang course, but ranges also to other sciences, and Pauli? At a 1946 party in Bohr’s home, of to music and the arts. course. The whole chapter on Pauli is so In covering a wide range of topics, from engrossing as to become unstoppable, even relativity to chaos theory, Pais’ life-and- troubling reading: how could Pauli in 1921 science stories provide, above all, the staple (aged only 21) publish a review of the relativi- on which young (and not so young) scientists ty theory that was so good as to merit Ein- should feed their ambitions. Alternatively, we stein’s praise? Easy: he started early, during the can just enjoy and be enriched, both cultural- boring hours at the Gymnasium, when he sur- ly and emotionally. I reptitiously read Einstein’s papers under his Giovanni F. Bignami is at the Agenzia Spaziale desk. We follow the development of Pauli’s Italiana, Viale Liegi 26, 00198 Rome, Italy. thoughts on physics, notably on quantum widely circulated, perhaps as much for its physics and the relations between spin and gossip and character assessments of the rich quantum statistics. A lifelong interest of his, and famous as for its astral clues. That was in which led to that pillar of physics known as the 1543, the year that the same publisher — spin-statistics theorem, was, sadly, to be for- Wacky star of the Johannes Petreius of Nuremberg — brought mulated only in 1958, the year of Pauli’s death. out Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus. Indirectly, yet profoundly, we sometimes Renaissance Two years later Petreius printed Car- get the perspective of Pais himself, going Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds dano’s most enduring book, his Ars Magna, well beyond personal recollections. During and Works of a Renaissance an event off Grafton’s map, although he does the description of Eugene Wigner’s life, for Astrologer include a great deal of other fascinating example, the author admits to a difficulty in by Anthony Grafton information about the Nuremberg publish- “grasping the personalities” of Hungarian- Harvard University Press: 2000. 284 pp. er. In 1547 Cardano produced a further born physicists such as Leo Szilard, Edward $35, £21.95 expanded book of genitures, now Libelli Teller, John von Neumann (officially Margit- Owen Gingerich Quinque. tai Neumann Janos Lajos) and, of course, Cardano’s astrological publications had a Wigner himself. There is a quaint, lightly Girolamo Cardano was seen by his 1950s variety of consequences. Now a controver- exotic something that sets the Hungarians biographer, Oystein Ore, as “the gambling sial figure, he also became a sought-after apart from the more classic Mittel-European scholar”, the man who introduced ideas of adviser who could both prescribe medicine variety of the twentieth-century physicists probability to Western civilization. Cardano’s and deliver prognostications. He lived in a who changed the world for ever. Ars Magna, the book containing the general world of contradictions, where the messages There is a wider lesson, in history and solution of the cubic equation and generally from medicines and from the stars were sociology, to be learnt here, especially for seen as the greatest mathematical treatise of fraught with ambiguity. It is this complex younger readers. Of the 17 biographies in the sixteenth century, has been characterized world of Renaissance growing pains that Pais’ book, 13 are of European-born (and as the first decisive advance over the Grafton carefully dissects, with all its mixed educated) scientists. Some, such as Isidor attainments of the giants of classical Greek signals and complexities. And he does it with Rabi, are from countries like Galicia, which mathematics. The Dictionary of Scientific literary grace and marvellous turns of shifted from being a province of the Austro- Biography lists medicine as the first of Car- phrase: “Cardano promised those who Hungarian Empire to becoming part of post- dano’s qualifications and declares that among walked the paper corridors of his collection Second World War Poland; some, like Pauli, the physicians of Europe, he ranked second the secrets of both natural and political simply say “I am European”. only to Vesalius. Yet another Cardano emerges power”. His acquaintance Rheticus, Coper- Pauli had his reasons. He was born and in this new book: the leading astrologer of his nicus’s only disciple, was none too pleased at educated in Vienna, studied in Munich, was day, rivalled only by Luca Gaurico and later by being portrayed — in Grafton’s vivid appointed ETH-Zürich full professor at 28, the Elizabethan magus John Dee. description — “as Dr Watson to Cardano’s became, by default, German after the It was no doubt inevitable that historian astrological Mr Holmes”. In an “unbut- Anschluss (1933), but, in 1938, was denied Anthony Grafton would bring his formi- toned” autobiography Cardano portrayed Swiss citizenship because of his insufficient dable intellect and lucid style to bear on himself as a “wacky professor”, Grafton knowledge of “Schwitzerdeutch” (while, of Cardano. The Princeton professor has al- writes, considering this “a partial mirror of course, his Hochdeutch was impeccable). Yet, ready completed a magisterial, two-volume his fractured self”. after the war and the Nobel prize, he turned study of the great Renaissance classical Elsewhere, Grafton has written engag- down lucrative appointments in the United scholar Joseph Scaliger, whose father’s great- ingly on the history of the footnote; here he States to come back to Zürich and, finally, to est claim to fame was, in Grafton’s words, reveals himself to be an erudite master of become a Swiss citizen. Of the other Pais per- “the most savage book review in the bitter endnotes. A rich array of esoteric sources sonae, two are Chinese-born (Tsung Dao Lee annals of literary invective”, a 900-page never hinders the narrative, but provides the and Chen Ning Yang), and only two, Mitchell rebuttal of Cardano’s On Subtlety. evidence at the end of the volume. And when Feigenbaum and Robert Serber, were born in Born in Italy in 1501, Cardano set out on the desired materials aren’t available from the United States. the path to becoming Europe’s most famous Cardano, because his letters had been What better way to depict, besides the lives astrologer with the publication of an accessi- burned, Grafton switches effortlessly to a and science of the famed, the twentieth-cen- ble astrological handbook in 1538. Five years well-documented case of how to give eco- tury wave of migration of European culture later he achieved international notoriety nomic advice to clients by the infamous seer towards the United States. This was a phe- when it was reissued as Libelli Duo in an Nostradamus. Only very rarely can one nomenon of staggering proportions and enlarged version with 66 genitures, or birth catch Grafton out. During a meeting with extent. A different, but also very interesting, horoscopes, of notable people. The book was John Dee in 1552, when Cardano had come 928 NATURE | VOL 404 | 27 APRIL 2000 | www.nature.com © 2000 Macmillan Magazines Ltd spring books to Britain to treat the Archbishop of St Pepperberg points out, have “a complex can “effect environment change” (that is, Andrews for asthma, Grafton misidentifies social system and a long life” and, more obtain the object) by vocalizing “Wanna …” “Joannes Franciscus” as Sir John Cheke, crucially, they do seem to ‘mimic’ human plus some word in its vocabulary. The evi- whose horoscope Cardano had cast, rather speech moderately well. On the debit side, dence presented suggests that Alex could than as Jofrancus Offusius, an astrologer many studies of mimetic birds have conspi- acquire vocal labels for objects, actions and temporarily living off Dee’s patronage. cuously failed to establish two-way speech attributes to a level similar to that reached in For the overwhelming majority of communication with humans in properly earlier experiments with great apes taught to Nature’s readers, astrology has been relegat- controlled laboratory settings. deploy visual signs or tokens. ed to the rubbish bin of history. Of what use is Pepperberg argues convincingly that the Some generalization to novel situations is all this exotic scholarship? Let Grafton speak: kinds of classical and operant conditioning found, along with a very limited combinator- “A knowing and thinking subject, Cardano techniques deployed in those prior investiga- ial ability. There were also indications that modified, manipulated, or invented contra- tions of mynahs, magpies and parrots were Alex can respond appropriately to sameness, dictory languages as he needed them. He was not well matched with the highly interactive, difference and absence. Comprehension of not always sure why he used them as he did, social manner in which mimetic birds relative size was fair, and that of object per- or on what assumptions they rested, or even acquire calls and songs in their natural manence was good, comparable to that whether the predictions he spoke came to environment. Accordingly, she modified an demonstrated in young children by the Swiss him from his own intellect, the stars, or dae- earlier technique of Dietmar Todt’s, in which developmentalist Jean Piaget. monic inspiration. But he knew and said that “humans assume roles played by psittacine For my money, the most interesting he stood at the center of a cosmos that his peers in the wild”.
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