This book provides a rounded biography of Franz (later Sir Francis) Simon, his early life in Germany, his move to Oxford in 1933, and his experimental contributions to low temperature physics approximating absolute zero. After 1939 he switched his research to nuclear physics, and is credited with solving the problem of uranium isotope separation by gaseous diffusion for the British nuclear programme Tube Alloys.
The volume is distinctive for its inclusion of source materials not available to previous researchers, such as Simon's diary and his correspondence with his wife, and for a fresh,...