- A brilliant physics student at the University of Utrecht when the Nazis came to power. The German authorities ordered that the 14th of June, 1941, would be the last day Jews were allowed to get a Ph.D in Holland. Pais determined to get a Ph.D before this date, because he wanted to get out of Holland to study abroad. On June 9, 1941, he earned his degree, making him the last Jew to receive a doctorate degree in wartime Holland.
- Reknowned theoretical physicist and scientific historian. Pais worked with Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Paul Dirac and Richard Feynman, among many others. The relationships he made during his research career gave him a unique perspective from which he wrote many highly acclaimed biographies.
- His dissertation attracted the attention of Niels Bohr, who sent a message inviting him to work with him in Denmark. Pais finally escaped Nazi-occupied Holland in 1946 to do so.
- In 1947, he was a colleague of Albert Einstein at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Pais made several important contributions to the theory of particle physics during his time at Princeton.
- Author of a critically acclaimed biography of Einstein, Subtle is the Lord: the Science and Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford University Press, 1982); a definitive history of the study of modern physics, Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (Clarendon Press, 1986); the biography Niels Bohr's Times: In Physics, Philosophy and Polity (Clarendon Press, 1991); the book Einstein Lived Here (Clarendon Press, 1995); a biography of Paul Dirac; The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (Oxford University Press, 2000); and other works.
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