Bertrand Russell and his World

Then, within forty-eight hours of Russell’s cables, Moscow Radio began broadcasting a reply to Russell from Premier Krushchev, an event which brought Russell nearer to the centre of the scene

faith that reason would always conquer if only the facts were explained simply enough. It was therefore natural that his greatest achievements should be in the stratosphere of mathematics and logic where human feelings were of no account. Equally natural was his failure to enjoy, until old age, anything more than a life perpetually fraught with personal worry.

Russell, now in his eighty-sixth year, entered the world of protest meetings and sit-downs on wet pavements that could look ridiculous or heroic according to point of view, and of vilification by much of the press which suggested that things had not changed a lot since the First World War

The outcome was the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, signed by eight other prominent scientists, six of them Nobel Prize-winners, calling for the resolution of international disputes by peaceful means since in the nuclear age the word ‘victory’ no longer had real meaning

Man’s Peril’ was a turning-point in Russell’s life. It led to his foundation, with Albert Einstein, of the Pugwash Movement which still flourishes today

had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and chose as the subject of his Nobel Lecture, ‘What Desires are Politically Important?’

The flying-boat in which he was flown from Oslo to Trondheim for an official lecture sank on landing and Russell, aged 76, found himself swimming to safety in the icy northern waters

Between 1945 and 1954 Russell became a regular broadcaster for the BBC and was awarded the honour of delivering the Corporation’s first series of Reith Lectures, an honour which might have made that noble lord turn in his retirement.

one of his annual courses evolving into Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, his last survey of the problems associated with an empiricist

The chances appeared to be better at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, and Einstein, Oscar Veblen and Herman Weyl, the Director’s advisers in mathematics and philosophy, were agreeable that Russell should join them. But the Director was Abraham Flexner.