Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist

A fascinating collection of essays from twenty-seven of the worlds most interesting scientists about the moments and events in their childhoods that set them on the paths that would define their lives.

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 the volume of Einsteins work he picked up as a diversion from heartbreak.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow, found his calling through Descartes.
Mary Catherine Batesonauthor of Composing a Lifediscovered that she wanted to be an anthropologist while studying Hebrew.
Janna Levinauthor of How the Universe Got Its Spotsfelt impelled by the work of Carl Sagan to know more.

Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson, Daniel C. Dennett, Lynn Margulis, V. S. Ramachandran, Howard Gardner, Richard Dawkins, and more than a dozen others tell their own entertaining and often inspiring stories of the deciding moment. Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in essays that invite us to consider what it isand isntthat sets the scientific mind apart and into action.