Abstract
In this paper I shall sketch an account of John Bell’s upbringing in Belfast, his family influences and his education [1]. As well as giving a general description, I shall attempt to see if there may be anything in his upbringing that can explain in any way the direction his career took. Of course there can and should be no attempt to explain genius, but we may wonder why his particular genius took him towards analysis of the structure and interpretation of the quantum theory, an area of physics almost completely disregarded at the time he took it up.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
For general biographical information on John Bell see, for example, J. Bernstein: Quantum Profiles (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton 1991 )
M. Bell: in Quantum Mechanics, High Energy Physics and Accelerators: Selected Papers of John S. Bell, ed. by M. Bell, K. Gottfried, M. Veltman ( World Scientific, Singapore 1995 ) pp. 1–2
A. Whitaker: Phys. World 11 (12), 29 (1998)
P.G. Burke, I.C. Percival: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 45, 1 (1999)
M. Bell: in Quantum Reflections,ed. by J. Ellis, D. Amati (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2000) pp. xi – xiv
L.W. Kerr: unpublished memoir
L.I. Schiff: Quantum Mechanics, 1st edn. ( McGraw-Hill, New York 1949 )
E.J. Squires: The Mystery of the Quantum World, 2nd edn. ( Institute of Physics, Bristol 1994 )
J.S. Bell: Physics World 3 (8), 33 (1990)
M. Born: Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1949 )
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Whitaker, A. (2002). John Bell in Belfast: Early Years and Education. In: Quantum [Un]speakables. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05032-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05032-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-07664-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-05032-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive