by Arthur I Miller, W W Norton. Hardback ISBN 9780393065329, £18.99 ($27.95). Paperback, published as 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession. ISBN 9780393338645, £11.99 ($16.95).
Do you think there is a sense beyond numbers? Do they have any special meaning? Are there some more powerful than others? Many great men throughout the centuries have exercised their minds to find answers to these questions. In his latest book, the distinguished historian of science Arthur I Miller (p17) investigates one of the possible responses in the unique blend of two extraordinary lives, those of Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli.
The book tells the story of the fruitful friendship between two of the greatest thinkers of our times, who were obsessed with the power of certain numbers. The two personalities are central to the narrative and the author masters their story with plenty of interesting details that hold our attention with humour. In the course of reading, we sometimes encounter complex physics formulas, but Miller expertly translates them into a refined interpretation that novices can understand.
Among the accurate account of the enormous and lasting contributions to their respective fields, such as Pauli’s hypothesis of the neutrino in physics and Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious in psychoanalysis, we find indeed “the” number: 137. This pure number, the fine structure constant, which to the eyes of a layman may appear harmless and meaningless, was the “step toward the great goal of finding a theory that would unite the domains of relativity and quantum theory, the large and the small, the macrocosm and the microcosm”. But it is not only that. Through the unfolding of dreams, mandalas, archetypes and symbols, this number turns out to be the golden gate between rational and emotional, creativity and intelligence, science and belief. This tale provides us with a window across time and space into enlightenments of genius.
Deciphering the Cosmic Number is a revelation of something beyond intuition that compels us to participate in the human torment in those whose lives are marked by the quest to find answers to questions transcending centuries and ages. It describes, looking through a magnifying glass, the lives of two human beings who achieved so much in their fields through a “strange friendship” during the difficult period of the Second World War.
