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From: Web of Stories <1 To: leevacation@gmail.com> Subject: Freeman Dyson celebrates his 90th birthday Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 16:53:29 +0000 View this email in your browser Web of Stories Ltd Science Navigation Group Middlesex House 34-42 Cleveland Street London WIT 4LB United Kingdom EFTA00636646 Freeman Dyson celebrates his 90th birthday this month and what better way to honour his landmark achievements in the fields of science and mathematics than to listen to him tell his life story with Web of Stories. Born in England on 15 December 1923, Freeman Dyson graduated from Cambridge University in 1945 with a BA in mathematics. In 1947, he moved to the USA where he went to work at Cornell University and, later, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. New Jersey. Dyson is recognised for demonstrating the equivalence of two formulations of quantum electrodynamics: Richard Feynman's diagrams. and the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Sin-16r° Tomonaga. He wrote that Feynman's diagrams were not just a computational tool but a physical theory, and he developed rules for the diagrams that solved the problem of renormalization. Dyson presented Feynman's theories in a form that other physicists could understand enabling them to finally accept Feynman's work. Robert Oppenheimer. who recognised the critical role Dyson had played, awarded him a lifetime appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson also worked on the Orion Project, which proposed the possibility of space-flight using nuclear pulse propulsion. However, the project was abandoned in 1963. He has authored many books and has been awarded a number of prizes. including the Templeton Prize for progress in Religion. In these fascinating recordings, you can watch Dyson tell his life story in his own words. He remembers how, during World War II, he worked in Bomber Command and would work on his mathematics as a welcome distraction to occupy He also recounts his decision to turn his back on pure mathematics, embracing physics as an alternative, after he failed to solve the Siegel conjecture: "I couldn't solve a problem which would have been really an important contribution to mathematics... So I decided, well, I might as well do physics and which is at least as interesting and more important." He talks about his good fortune in getting to know Richard Feynman and his ground-breaking work: / became a sort of an interested spectator. watching him work out his version of quantum electrodynamics... He had these amazing ways of calculating with diagrams. where you didn't have to have equations but you simply wrote down the answers, and instead of solving equations the way other people did, he just wrote down the answers by looking at the pictures." He also talks about Project Orion. Summing it up as 'You take a huge space ship, large enough to carry a few hundred nuclear bombs. and you'd throw the bombs out of the back one at a time. Each of the bombs would blow up and the debris would hit the bottom of the ship and you'd go boom, boom, boom, up into the sky." These, and countless other intriguing recordings from Dyson and other contributors, can be watched as short films with fully searchable transcripts. All Web of Stories videos are easy to share with friends and colleagues, and may be embedded into personal blogs and websites. Find out more: http://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/1. EFTA00636647 his mind. "The theorem I proved was the extension of Mann's theorem to more than two sequences... That was one of the most satisfying things l ever did. It's a really beautiful piece of work.' g alFac g alTwi g al We g; Em ebook tter bsite ail Tube Facebook Twiner Website Email YouTube Copyright © 2013 Web of Stories. All rights reserved. You have received this message because you asked to receive updates from Web of Stories. For further information or enquiries please contact info@webofstories.com. If you do not wish to receive any further messages. please email info@webofstories.com with 'Unsubscribe' in the subject line. To ensure you receive news and updates from Web of Stories, please add info@webofstories.com to your safetist. Web of Stories Ltd I Science Navigation Group I Registered in England and Wales with Company Number 4689627. Middlesex House, 3442 Cleveland Street I London, WIT 4LB I United Kingdom Our mailing address Is: Web of Stories Middlesex House 34.42 Cleveland Street London, Greater London WIT 4LB United Kingdom Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences Email Marketing "aPowered by MailChimp EFTA00636648