The physicist Freeman Dyson (born 1923) has worked on wide-ranging projects in his field, always attracted by the latest developments. He is best known, however, for his speculation on the philosophical implications of science and its political uses.

Freeman John Dyson was born in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England, on December 15, 1923. His father, Sir George Dyson, was a famed composer and musician who was from 1937 to 1952 director of London's Royal College of Music. Young Dyson's mother worried about her son's solitary pursuit of mathematics (he taught himself calculus from a textbook during one Christmas holiday), but his interests proved to be varied if not always sociable. The early science fiction of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne attracted him, and in his teens an interest in the causes of war led him to create a metaphysical faith that he called Cosmic Unity.

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Dyson entered Cambridge University in 1941 but was...