In the early 2000s, David Kaiser first visited famed physicist Freeman Dyson at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. By the end of the conversation, Dyson was handing over keys to his office, along with files, to help Kaiser’s research — a characteristically open gesture by Dyson, a legendary quantum theorist. The English-born Dyson started his career as a mathematical prodigy who helped expand quantum electrodynamics (QED) — the study of the quantum behavior of light and its interaction with charged particles — and ended it as…
