The son of an army official, Max von Laue lived in a number of cities during his childhood, as his father's changing assignments prompted the family's frequent moves. Though he showed an aptitude for science in high school, it was not until he enrolled at the University of Strasbourg that he was able to fully devote himself to his studies. Under the tutelage of the preeminent physicist Max Planck, Laue studied theoretical physics, earning his Ph.D. in 1903. Beginning in 1905, he served as a teaching assistant to Planck, who had become his friend and mentor. During the next four years he and Planck developed the concept of entropy in physics, and they were among the first scientists to accept Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. When Laue joined the staff at the University of Munich, he began to focus his research on optics. At that time, there was great...