Curious minds: how a child becomes a scientist (1st ed.)

What makes a child decide to become a scientist?For Robert SapolskyStanford professor of biologyit was an argument with a rabbi over a passage in the Bible.Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to a volume of Einsteins work, picked up as a diversion from heartbreak.Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow, found his calling through Descartes.Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson . . . 27 scientists in all write about what it was that sent them on the path to their life's work.

Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in stories that invite us to consider what it isand what it isntthat sets the scientific mind apart.From the Trade Paperback edition.