Book review

Despite being the only person to win two Nobel prizes in physics, for the transistor in 1956 and superconductivity in 1972, John Bardeen is little recognized by the media or the general public. To explain this lack of recognition, a Bell Labs scientist created what he called a Bardeen number, the ratio of substance to self-advertisement. This modest, soft-spoken, relaxed Midwesterner ranked highest on this scale. When Bardeen, along with Brattain and Shockley, won the Nobel for the transistor, his reactions were mixed. He was a bit embarrassed to have won recognition before some of those who had taught him, the fathers of quantum mechanics and many-body theory. And he was unable to engage fully in the celebrations that distracted him from his work on superconductivity, within months of a breakthrough.