Schrödinger's view

Erwin Schrödinger, one of the great physicists, wrote a little book called My View of the World. In a way, it’s a model for the kind of book everyone should write. It’s not a record of degrees achieved, awards won, jobs worked or committees joined. It’s a record of what an active mind thought of the world.

The foreword has the finest apology for this kind of book I’ve seen:

 

I do not know whether it is presumptuous of me to suppose that readers will be interested in ‘my’ view of the world. The critics, not myself, will decide on this. But a gesture of decorous modesty is usually in fact a disguise for arrogance. I should prefer not to be guilty of this. Anyway, the total (I have counted) is about twenty-eight to twenty-nine thousand words. Not an excessive size for a view of the world.

 

I wish some of my friends would write their version of this universal book. And I admire the brevity.

• Source: Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World, translated by Cecily Hastings; Cambridge at the University Press, 1964.