Jeremy Bernstein - Freeman Dyson - superb physicist and superb mathematician (79/86)

To listen to more of Jeremy Bernstein’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Jeremy Bernstein - My father: The bes...  

Born in 1929, Jeremy Bernstein is an American physicist, educator and writer known for the clarity of his writing for the lay reader on the major issues of modern physics. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2011]


TRANSCRIPT: People who don’t know him, say he’s not a physicist, he’s a mathematician. That’s complete nonsense, he’s a superb physicist. He’s also a superb mathematician. He invented this reactor, a safe reactor, the TRIGA, which is used. And he has tremendous culture. He knows many languages and is very widely read in these languages. He’s a treasure, that fellow. He’s the only person that I know that I don’t begrudge the Templeton Prize to. That he got the million bucks from Templeton I think is just fine. The other people who got the million bucks like Polkinghorne and those people, they should give it back because they don’t deserve any money. Nor d'Espagnat and those people. I mean, they’re nice people but they don’t deserve any prizes. But Dyson, yes. He should get the million bucks. He also should have gotten the Nobel Prize. I thought that was very, very ridiculous, that he didn’t share it with those people.