Overview

Is there a number at the root of the universe? A primal number that everything in the world hinges on? This question exercised many great minds of the twentieth century, among them the groundbreaking physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Their obsession with the power of certain numbers—including 137, which describes the atom's fine-structure constant and has great Kabbalistic significance—led them to develop an unlikely friendship and to embark on a joint mystical quest reaching deep into medieval alchemy, dream interpretation, and the Chinese Book of Changes. 137 explores the profound intersection of modern science with the occult, but above all it is the tale of an extraordinary, fruitful friendship between two of the greatest thinkers of our times. Originally published in hardcover as Deciphering the Cosmic Number.

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The history is fascinating, as are the insights into the personalities of these great thinkers. New Scientist Arthur I. Miller's thoroughly researched book gives a fascinating account of the two men's journey into the unexplored territory between the physical and the psychic... http://plus.maths.org/issue51/reviews/book1/index.html This absorbing dual biography charts the strange friendship between two unusual men: physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist Carl Jung. www.scotsman.com The book serves as the first popular biography of this outstanding scientist and is long overdue. THE Miller is cleverly quizzical about two mavericks who sparked off one another in a quest for a primal number that would provide, in the words of Douglas Adams, the answer to life, the Universe and everything . The Times

Author Information

Arthur I. Miller is a professor emeritus at University College London. He has published many critically acclaimed books, including Einstein, Picasso; Empire of the Stars; and 137. He lives in London.

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