Description: The Martians is the engaging story of five little-known Hungarian physicists who transformed 20th century science. They emigrated to the United States from Hungary in the 1930's, and were important contributors to such importants experiments as the Manhattan Project. Variously recognized with the National Medal for Science, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize for physics, these five remained close friends throughout their lives. Through decades of political and social upheaval, they held onto their Hungarian identities and were fiervely opinionated and politically active, reactionaries against the fascism and anti-Semitism with which they had grown up. Based on the author's personal relationships with the subjects and many interviews with their contemporaries, The Martians is an exhaustively researched, fascinating story of an important era in American, Hungarian, and scientific history.
Review Quotes: "Hargittai has carefully read the published literature and weaves useful, analytical patterns that indicate knowledge of scientific comunities while generally approving the relationship of postwar physics, mathematics, and engineerings in teh US with US cold war politics."-- Physics Today
"What a story! Five brilliant Jewish-Hungarian kids burst out of the great secondary schools of Hungary, learn their physics in Germany, and give their all to America in WWII. And after.Across the ethnic quilt of Europe and America, the five brilliant "Martians" of this book roam, their weapon in mind --math! István Hargittai, a Jewish-Hungarian like his heroes, tells the remarkable story of five immigrants, of vastly different politics, without whom American science (and the world) would not be the same."--Roald Hoffmann, Nobel laureate, Ithaca, New York"Surely, 'hard times provide a good condition for creativity, ' as do supportive culture, societal upheaval, intellectual ferment, and scientific revolution. Imagine then, a group of life stories woven through unique instances of all these factors. István Hargittai traces the turbulent lives of five uniquely creative scientists who survived, succeeded, and changed the world."--Arno Penzias, Nobel laureate, San Francisco"This is an important story that needs to be told, and Hargittai tells it well."--NatureCharlie Munger of WESCO Financial Corporation recommended this book at the 2007 WESCO Annual Meeting: "It is a hell of a book about five Hungarian physicists driven to the U.S. by Hitler, who contributed much to science here. I can't recommend it enough."--Charlie Munger"fascinating and informative"--Chemical Heritage