I enjoy reading about Dyson and reading his writings. Among the greats he seems the most human. Von Neumann was always this martian with an IQ of 500, Einstein the quintessential absent-minded professor, Feynman the trickster genius, Landau the force if nature in life and research. But stories about Dyson always radiate human warmth. Very inspiring.
I actually think Schwinger is (one of) the most human, by which I mean flawed.
He was famous - from Gell-Mann to Dyson to [insert famous field theorist] - for being deliberately incomprehensible when explaining himself, very stubborn when it came to new ideas (to an almost ridiculous extent if Murray Gell-Mann was being serious) and almost literally obsessed with mathematical beauty over matching experiment.
Feynman was also flawed, but more as a man than a scientist.
Edit: A lesser-known but still very important particle physicist, Tom Kibble was known for being extremely humble and straightforward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHr9yrV2AI
He told us a story about being in London during ww2 as a teenager. He remarked, with a grin, that he wasn't afraid. Like a teenager, he rather enjoyed the crinkly sound of buildings getting crushed. !
He fell in love with math reading Bell's "Men of Mathematics"
I emailed the author on that very point, and she said the decision to use "Dr Dyson" was an informed choice made by an editor and was out of her hands.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 46.2 ms ] threadNY Times article will not translate to other languages via Google itools for more than 2 seconds, it is blocked.
He does seem especially nice though.
He was famous - from Gell-Mann to Dyson to [insert famous field theorist] - for being deliberately incomprehensible when explaining himself, very stubborn when it came to new ideas (to an almost ridiculous extent if Murray Gell-Mann was being serious) and almost literally obsessed with mathematical beauty over matching experiment.
Feynman was also flawed, but more as a man than a scientist.
Edit: A lesser-known but still very important particle physicist, Tom Kibble was known for being extremely humble and straightforward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHr9yrV2AI
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzDA6mtmKQE...
He fell in love with math reading Bell's "Men of Mathematics"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzC1IRYN_Ps&list=PLVV0r6CmEs...
[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/freeman-d...