The main hero of the novel is looking for an answer to the question: “What is his place as a scientist in the world.” The book focuses on the historic period from the 30s till the end of the World War II. A common American post-student wants to become a scientist. He has nothing except his talent, courage, patience, persistence, and strong will to devote his life to physics. On obtaining his diploma and his appointment as an assistant and teacher in the University of Columbia, he spent his summer washing dishes, working at a gas station in a place with a significant name High Hope. He found by chance that he had taken the job from a man who had a family to support. Eric Gorin moved on.When asked whether he is especially interested in any particular field of physics, Eric frankly answered that he didn’t know enough about any of them yet. One of Eric’s professors Hollingworth is very kind to him, but physics is only a career, his way of making money.Eric was going to teach freshman physics lab and take his own courses towards his doctorate as well. “You’ll probably find the first year rather confusing and hard work to teach between the two schedules, but things will straighten out for you after a while. “ – indifferently notices Earle Fox, department chairman.Eric is proud of talking to the Nobel Price winner, such a prominent figure in science But Earle Fox is a good artist. No one could guess how empty and unhappy his life is, the life of a skeptic and pessimist, the life of stereotype and standard.He never cared for the work, never put even a spark of passion into it. No soul there could be in the pure, abstract science. The men Fox saw had a fine and delicate intelligence, but the society which had reared them, had also told them that they were working in fields that were foreign to mainstreams of ordinary endeavor. The knew the verdict pronounced on them was the opposite of justice,...
