Curious Minds : How a Child Becomes a Scientist

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 Einstein's 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 isn'tthat sets the scientific mind apart.

John Brockman, editor of many books, including The Next Fifty Years, is also the author of By the Late John Brockman, The Third Culture, and Digerati: Encounters with the Cyber Elite. He is the founder and CEO of Brockman Inc., a literary and software agency, and the publisher and editor of the Web site Edge. He lives in New York City.

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