Paul Halpern, "The Great Atom Debate"

Main Point Books welcomes back store favorite Paul Halpern with his newest science-for-smart-people-who-aren't-scientists title "The Great Atom Debate: Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, and the Battle for the Essence of Reality." Come learn about the little-known story of how two of history’s greatest physicists waged a war over the existence of the atom and the nature of reality itself.

This event will be in our lower level. RSVPs are requested; walks-ins are welcome as space permits. The book can be purchased at registration or at the event.

About the book

In the late nineteenth century, two extraordinarily brilliant, incredibly stubborn Austrian physicists—Ernst Mach and Ludwig Boltzmann—fought to determine whether flowing energy or discrete matter was the chief component of the universe. Mach treated atoms as useful fictions. Boltzmann, however, insisted atoms were a physical necessity. The titanic struggle rattled Boltzmann’s nerves, and he eventually descended into madness and suicide. Extraordinary experiments soon thereafter vindicated his lonely plea for atoms. Despite their differences, both thinkers influenced the young Albert Einstein, paving the way for relativity and quantum theory. Mach is best known today for his groundbreaking work on supersonic speed and shock waves.