Lehr- und Wanderjahre: The Traveling Apprentices of the Second Quantum Generation 1922–1930

A 'mountain air compressor with integrated temperature control' was the remarkable invention about which Rudolf Peierls communicated with his friend Heinz Rudolph in the earliest surviving letter of his long and extensive correspondence.²² Heinz commented that the idea, while 'nice', served better as a source of amusement than a serious invention, not least because it would not be very good value for money; nevertheless it indicates that Rudolf Peierls, from a young age was interested in science and engineering…