Books - Nobel Prize Scientists

Product Description:
Nobelist Eric Kandel's account of how his personal quest to understand memory intersected with the emergence of a new science.

In Search of Memory relates the astonishing story of how four different and distinct disciplines—behaviorist psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology—converged into a powerful new science of mind. Through its profound insights into thought, perception, action, recollection, and mental illness, this new science is revolutionizing our understanding of learning and memory while simultaneously showing great promise for more effective healing.

The narrative follows Eric R. Kandel through the last five decades, focusing on Vienna, where he became fascinated with memory. With intrepid scientific ardor, Kandel was captivated first by history and psychoanalysis, then by neurobiology, and finally by the biological processes of memory. His resulting, multifaceted perspective was the foundation for his path-breaking research that will continue to dominate modern thought—not only in science but in culture at large. 50 illustrations.



Customer Review: A Captivating Book About the Cellular Mechanisms Underlying Short-term and Long-term Memory:
Overall Opinion:

"In Search of Memory" by Eric Kandel is an engaging read that covers a wide variety of topics from the beginnings of neuroscience to extraordinary breakthroughs in the field of molecular biology. I purchased this book with the intention of learning about the mechanisms that give rise to short-term and long-term memory but was happily surprised to find that it contained so much more than that. I found "In Search of Memory" fascinating, humorous at times, and thorough; in this review, I hope to persuade others to read this exceptional book.

Synopsis:

Kandel begins his narrative by describing his vivid memory of the night the Gestapo raided his house; he would later come to realize that this incident occurred during Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," where devastating, anti-Semitic riots took place in Germany and Austria in November 1938. Kandel notes that even more than 60 years later, he can recall every detail and emotion he was experiencing at the moment. It is these events which prompted his later remarkable scientific work: how processes in the brain enable us to store memories.

Before describing his life's work on memory, Kandel provides an excellent overview of how discoveries made in the 20th century have contributed to our body of knowledge concerning the nervous system and have shaped neuroscience into the discipline it is today. We learn about Santiago Ramón y Cajal, whose pivotal observations regarding the structure and function of neurons comprise the neuron doctrine, or the theory of neural organization fundamental to our understanding of the brain. Subsequent topics of discussion include the generation and propagation of action potentials, the resting membrane potential of a neuron, synaptic transmission between two neurons through the release of neurotransmitters, and other signaling mechanisms.

To study how memory is stored in the brain, Kandel decided to take a reductionist approach by examining cells that participate in the memory storage process. Given the limited technology and knowledge of the brain's neural circuits at the time, he realized it would be exceedingly difficult to understand how memory is stored in neuronal networks using the hippocampus of a mammal as an experimental model. Thus, he concluded that Aplysia, a large sea snail, would be the most suitable animal for his experiments because of its simple nervous system; most of the snail's large cells are assembled in clusters (ganglia) that contain a relatively small amount of cells dedicated to simple reflex responses, making it possible for scientists to isolate a single, simple behavior to analyze.

Using Aplysia as an experimental model, Kandel and his colleagues eventually discovered the cellular mechanisms that give rise to short-term and long-term memory. Learning results in short-term memory because it generates temporary alterations in the strength of the synaptic connections between neurons. In order for short-term memory to be converted to long-term memory, gene transcription must occur to maintain long-lasting synaptic changes.

After achieving such success with Aplysia, Kandel decided to examine higher cognitive processes, such as explicit memory in the hippocampus of the mammalian brain. In particular, he wished to study whether long-term potentiation, a phenomenon that promotes synaptic strengthening in the hippocampus, is analogous to the mechanisms of long-term facilitation he discovered in Aplysia. Although he found that there are several differences between the two processes, he notes that vertebrate and invertebrate animals share several vital cellular mechanisms of memory.

Kandel then turned his attention to age-related memory loss in Alzheimer's disease and found that this long-term memory deficit involves the hippocampus. In addition, he noticed that aging coincides with a loss of synapses that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is critical to long-term potentiation. Memory Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company of which Kandel was a co-founder, currently develops drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease as well as several other memory dysfunctions that accompany other mental illnesses.

"In Search of Memory" concludes with Kandel's pondering where neuroscience is heading in the years ahead; he believes that understanding how complex cognitive functions will require scientists to move from the study of elementary processes (single cells and proteins) to the level of the neural circuit. Finally, he mentions several questions he wishes to answer, including how selective attention guides the stabilization of memory in the brain and the relation between conscious and unconscious processing in the human brain.

Review

What appealed to me about "In Search of Memory" is Kandel's use of vivid detail to describe not only his own scientific work but also the revolutionary discoveries made by pioneering neuroscientists of the 20th century. We learn much about the specific proteins and enzymes involved in cellular mechanisms that result in short-term and long-term memory, and we gain a solid understanding of the remarkable findings that led up to Kandel's experimentation. Although Kandel utilizes technical jargon, he takes great care to define every term so that a reader who is not familiar with neuroscience can understand the intricate topics discussed. These explanations are beneficial to the casual reader as well as an individual who is already well-versed in the subject because they serve as good refresher material. In addition, I found the extensive glossary in the back of the book to be a useful resource.

One topic that I found particularly interesting is synaptic plasticity, which describes the ability of synaptic connections to change in strength. I was not aware that different types of learning result in different patterns of neural activity, each of which affects synaptic connections in a specific manner. That learning actually alters the nature of connections between neurons is remarkable to me. I believe that Kandel's illumination of the physiological mechanisms underlying learning complements descriptive psychological studies that have been conducted regarding different forms of learning and how they affect our behavior.

I also enjoyed reading about how technological advances made in the second half of the 20th century propelled Kandel's research and enabled him to expand it from implicit memory in an invertebrate animal to explicit memory in the mammalian brain. Without the development of recombinant DNA and gene cloning techniques, he would not have been able to determine how the regulation of genes related to the conversion of short-term memory to long-term memory.

In addition to describing the conclusions drawn from his experiments, Kandel thoroughly explains his approach to the questions he wishes to address. For example, before he discusses the details of his experimentation with Aplysia, Kandel first notes what specific questions concerning memory he would like to answer; then, he devotes an entire chapter to explaining how he chose Aplysia as an experimental model. He lists particular requirements that the chosen model must possess and then discusses how Aplysia fulfills these qualifications. I appreciated this method of writing because it provided me with insight into his thought process. Furthermore, it demonstrates how essential it is for a scientist to approach problems with a rational mindset and develop sound methods for testing hypotheses.

Finally, Kandel utilizes clear, concise language that facilitates reading the complex material discussed. His writing style is fluid, and he skillfully intertwines his autobiography with the scientific information presented. It was enjoyable to read the humorous anecdotes and accounts of his personal life interspersed throughout the book. The only complaint I have is that some parts of the book are slightly repetitive.

Interesting Quotes:

"I would...proceed to investigate the territory of explicit memory `one cell at a time.'"
This quote is the foundation of Kandel's reductionist approach to understanding the cellular mechanisms in the brain that allow us to store memories.

"Day science is rational, logical, pragmatic, carried forward by precisely designed experiments...Night science, on the other hand, `is a sort of workshop of the possible, where elaborated what will become the building materials of science.'"
The distinction between "day science" and "night science" is interesting; Kandel notes that initially, his study of short-term memory in Aplysia fell under the category of "night science." However, as he managed to discover the process by which learning affects the strength of synaptic connections, he believed that his studies were "day science."

Conclusion:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "In Search of Memory;" Kandel's writing is clear and easy to understand. He provides a comprehensive, informative overview of how neuroscience has progressed to the discipline it is today. That Kandel was able to elucidate the cellular mechanisms underlying short-term and long-term memory is extraordinary, and reading about his progression from studying simpler types of memory to analyzing higher cognitive functions like explicit memory and consciousness is intriguing. Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about how the brain stores memory and does not mind reading a large volume of material.


Customer Review: Read, Learn, and Remember:
In Search of Memory is one of the best books I have read this year. It combines autobiography, with an elegant and simple explanation of scientific and neurologic materials. It also reads like a "Who's Who" of neuroscience.

Eric Kandel can write, tell a tale, and give insight into a variety of topics. He detailed his personal story from being a child in Austria, leaving after Kristallnacht 1938, and finding his path in life. He explains Kristallnacht and the implications of its impact on mankind.

I appreciated his inclusion of his memories as an Austrian Jewish child fleeing the country, and his return visits during his adult life where he brought his insight forward into the political realm. He wove his personal and professional stories intricately detailing his very exceptional life.

For example, Dr. Kandel writes a detailed account of the events leading up to, during and after his trip to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize, with two other colleagues, during 2000. Therein lies a great human interest story, as well as, description of international celebrity.

The author shares with his reader, that he has an interest in why people do what they do, how they remember and what makes science. He writes extremely well, chronicling his journey with historical, political, psychological, and scientific backdrops. I was very impressed and impacted by the variety of photos included from his personal collection, as well as, explanatory diagrams and educational materials; an Index, Notes and Sources, and an excellent Glossary.

While reading In Search of Memory, I bookmarked extensively, and kept thinking of all the people that I would give this to, as a gift. This is a superb book. I liked the quote that captured it all, in three sentences:

"Few can interlace their autobiography with the evolution of a scientific paradigm. Even fewer
can weave such a story seamlessly. Eric Kandel is one of these." Yadin Dudai, Nature.


Customer Review: Autobiography & best of all, great science:
Great journey through a lifelong search for memory starting from its molecular mechanisms in a bottom-up fashion. This autobiographical book narrates Dr. Kandel's investigations of the mechanisms of memory by analyzing a very simple neuronal system - one sensory neuron, one interneuron, one motor neuron - and how Pavlov's learning protocols (habituation, sensitization and classical conditioning) act through this system. He found that the neuronal basis for learning, namely for short term memory is chemical signalling and synaptic strengthening between neurons.

Further inquiries together with new scientific discoveries in gene technology, enabled him and his team to set the foundations for our understanding of long term memory. This type of memory is not a temporary chemical state, but a true modification of the neural system by driving the formation of more active neuronal terminals and therefore more synapses and more connections between existing neurons. This is accomplished when a protein turns on a gene which in turn generates the formation of new terminals.

I was a bit afraid that the book would contain little scientific explanations or that it would be oversimplified, due to its autobiographic character. However I was positively surprised to find quite the contrary. In this book you will find probably better explanations of cellular signalling (especially neuronal signalling), ion channels, membrane receptors, etc. than in many molecular biology books. (Life Itself: Exploring the Realm of the Living Cell is highly recommended). You will find equally good explanations of the most recent discoveries in genetics and gene technologies (hox genes, gene manipulation, genes as switches, the nature of "nature vs. nurture" in genetics, etc. Nature Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human is also really good).

The autobiographical part helps in three ways:
1) It gives a brief outline of the field of neurosciences during the second half of the 20th century, from the perspective of a great neuroscientist. It starts with psychoanalysis, neurology, cognitive neuroscience and finally the genetic basis of our brains, while it explains the major contributions and breakthroughs in these fields.
2) It is probably one of the best insights into the way scientists work; it narrates how the author chose the questions he wanted to answer, the choices he had to made regarding the experimental object (the animal on which he would perform his experiments, which is probably as important to success as the experiments themselves), the technological constraints and opportunities, etc.
3) It explains how gene technology firms were born and how scientists are helping to find cures and medications in these fields.

Customer Review: Eric Kandel:
A-W-E-S-O-M-E ~~

What more can I say? This man is a wonderful researcher, very informative, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading his book. I will read it again, as the tests this man performed, and the way he assembled his team of researchers is just phenomenal!!

Customer Review: Superb scientific autobiography:
To the midway point of ISoM, more or less, Kandel weaves together elements of his personal story with the elements of his professional development. The weaving is done ably and interestingly. After the midway point, Kandel more or less abandons the conceit of writing autobiography and focuses almost exclusively on the science. ISoM is, especially from then on, quite a challenging read. But it richly rewards a reader's efforts. One of the top reviewers on this page calls ISoM something like 'candy for science types'. I'd say that's just right. It doesn't get more fascinating than the science that is at the core of ISoM. Kandel is a deeply learned and infectiously enthusiastic guide to the New Science of Mind. I wish more scientists of his stature would publish their own scientific autobiographies. Kandel has done the thinking public a great service. A terrific read!

Product Description:
A Nobel Prize-winning cancer biologist, leader of major scientific institutions, and veteran of science policy wars reflects on his remarkable career. Jeffrey Sachs has called Harold Varmus a “global scientist-statesman who bridges science and society to solve the weightiest global challenges.� But as readers will learn in this engaging memoir chronicling one man’s series of remarkable careers, as well as some of the central health-policy issues of our time, Varmus didn’t decide that he was drawn to medicine until he was one year into a PhD in English literature! Changing course in characteristically adventurous fashion, Varmus dove headfirst into medical school, shifted shortly after graduating from practice to research, and soon found himself at the forefront of cancer research at the University of California, San Francisco, on his way toward a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

In 1993, Varmus transformed from an academic scientist to a political one when President Clinton asked him to direct the National Institutes of Health. After six years at the NIH, he took the reins as president of the world-renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a position he still holds. Along the way, Varmus has continued his own laboratory work, remains committed to collaborative science, and still finds time to ride his bike to work.

Beyond the elegant combination of science and biography, this is a book about health issues of truly global importance. Varmus’s work on cancer-causing genes foreshadowed the development of the recent targeted therapies for cancer. At the NIH, he not only persuaded Congress to commit record funds to national health programs but also turned attention to international concerns like the worldwide malaria crisis. And, as he discusses in these pages, he has long been an enthusiastic yet nuanced supporter of stem cell research. The Art and Politics of Science is a glimpse into the world of high-stakes, big-budget science narrated by a man intimately acquainted with its everyday applications—an education for people in all walks of life from a scientist whose own research and professional commitments helped to shape our scientific age.
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Customer Review: Great Read!:
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the human side of how science is done and how medical research benefits us.

Customer Review: A Well-Written Collection of Memoirs:
Harold Varmus has had an impressive career encompassing Nobel-prize cancer research, directorship of the NIH, and presidency of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (with a recent annual compensation of $3.7 million, even though MSKCC is "non-profit"). This book is mainly a well-written collection of memoirs emphasizing on his pre-MSKCC experiences in these arenas. As such, the book is clearly not a full autobiography, nor intended to be.

What you get from the book will depend largely on what you came for. Personally, I'm involved in cancer research and treatment, so I primarily read the book hoping to gain new insights into solving the cancer problem from someone who's been prominent on the front lines for a long time. Unfortunately, the book greatly disappointed me in this regard. I found Varmus' views on cancer to be rather orthodox and even shallow, as though he's too entrenched in the cancer establishment to realize the true magnitude of its flaws and failures. Moreover, I was bored by the technical details related to Varmus' own cancer research, and I think this material is probably better covered in books devoted to the subject. Hence my deducting one star. (For a critique of the cancer establishment, see The War on Cancer: An Anatomy of Failure, A Blueprint for the Future by Guy Faguet and my review of the same.)

I found Varmus' discussion of his experiences as director of the NIH to be much more interesting, since he offers a unique window into the political and funding aspects of biomedical research at this highest level, and he shares plenty of personal stories which give us a feel for what it must have been like to be in his shoes.

The best chapter for me was actually the last one, where Varmus discusses open-access scientific publishing. I totally agree with his views on the pressing need and moral imperative for this, and I anticipate that his seminal contributions in this area may actually turn out to be the most important aspect of his legacy.

I can't generally recommend or not recommend this book since, again, it comes down to what you're looking for. All I can really say is that, if you're intestested in the kinds of endeavors Varmus has been involved in, or interested in his personal story itself, you might find this book worth reading. And you also have the option of reading only the chapters which interest you, since some chapters are fairly independent of others.

Customer Review: Read This Book While The Health Care Debate is Ongoing:
The prior reviewers have more than explained why this is a stunningly powerful story of how science works. For all of those who reflexively fear the government in health care, I say: go read this book. Learn how dedicated scientists have worked with this government agency to bring about fantastic scientific progress that may save your life. Remember, 1 in 2 males, and 1 in 3 females will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes. Without the NIH and its work, that diagnosis always would be a death sentence.

Customer Review: Arts and Sciences:
This book is a collection of fascinating autobiographical essays that show science benefits from the arts that it not be missed that the science and the arts are important for one another.

Customer Review: An OK inside look:
I went into this thinking the discussions would focus on the more 'political' side of science, outside of the laboratory - getting jobs, tenure, climbing ladders, building a reputation. And it did, in a few short sections. However, and for example, usually scientists have a great transition between postdoc and running their own laboratory. This shift was not really discussed at all, rather the book went into collaborations with other UCSF scientists immediately. I went into the book thinking the transition stages would be discussed in the big picture and with personal experience, and found throughout that they were lacking.

However, I did not expect a run-down of the science that led to the Nobel prize and such details on that section. I was not interested in this, and would believe the text boring for many readers not directly involved in research.

I found much of the book, particularly the later sections, to be short stories without clear ends. The problems and solutions at the NIH section in particular was rather lacking in consistency and seemed to be a collection of anecdotes.

The beginning story of English to medicine was interesting, but really, where were the clinical stories? Surely there are examples. And of the Human Genome Project? Others have given their account of the 'race' and I thought that the one herein would be interesting - after all, funding was truely ramped up during the time he was the head of the NIH. Surely there are interesting anecdotes regarding that. And so on...

Overall, I can't give it a low score just because it was not what I expected. I guess I wanted something else.

Product Description:
(Joseph Henry Press) Examines the lives of 15 women who have won Nobel prizes or contributed to a Nobel prize-winning project, exploring the reasons for the disparity in the number of women being awarded the coveted and honored award. Takes a fresh perspective on the history of science through the lives of gifted female scientists. Softcover. DLC: Women scientists--Awards.



Customer Review: case studies in discrimination:
McGrayne chronicles the discrimination faced by female scientists in the 20th century. Even by those who would eventually achieve the highest prize of the Nobel. She also includes biographies of a few women who never won the Nobel, but were acknowledged later by many to have merited it. Lise Meitner, of course. She was doubly disadvantaged. Being female and Jewish in Germany during the 1920s and 30s. The story of how Otto Hahn won the Physics Nobel shortly after World War 2 for work that he did jointly with her is well known to physicists.

Jocelyn Bell's work on pulsars is also described. Bell's advisor would later garner the Nobel for this, though Bell made the crucial observations and deductions from those.

Both these chapters can be exercises in frustration to a reader. Injustices that were never remedied. Though Bell is still alive, and so there is a chance that the Nobel committe might redress this oversight.

Customer Review: Great book:
I found this book really excellent--I was coming at it from being a female scientist (chemist) myself. Good from beginning to end....no complaints!

Customer Review: stories of women who loved science:
Why so few? This is the question which the author put on the first page of the book. More than 300 scientists have won the Nobel Prize since its establishment,however, only 10 of them are women. Why? Why have so few women won the Nobel Prize in science? Some people might say this small number could be evidence for old prejudices. But the author tried to find a different answer through this book. This book contains stories of 15 women scientists who won the Nobel Prize or had a critical role in Nobel Prize winning works. Although this book takes the style of a biography and also describes all the scientific details quite well, it is neither just a biography nor just a science book for general readers. It is more than both of them. These women scientists had gone through lots of difficulties. All of them had experiences of being rejected from the opportunity of receiving a higher education. Most of them had more than once been mistreated and disregarded of their abilities as well as their works. And some of them, such as Rosalind Franklin, still have not received the full credit which she deserves. One might say that all the scientists who did remarkable works had faced and overcome many kinds of difficulties. But these women had to carry the added burden of being "women scientists". So, as the author pointed, another question should arise when the book is finished. Why so many? Why have so many women challenged themselves with such difficult works in spite of all the obstacles? The answer is simple. They loved science. And, through this book, the readers will find a love and a understanding for these fearless women as well as their lover,science.

Customer Review: Liberation in Hour-Long Chapters:
Nobel Prize Women in Science is a superb collection of hour-long biographies of women who either won a Nobel Prize or worked on a project that won a Nobel Prize in science. The biographies are full of memorable vignettes and quotes and lucid explanations of the scientific discoveries. This reader found the book liberating because it debunked so many myths she had had about good scientists. This book makes great bedtime reading and excellent gifts for both men and women.

Customer Review: inspirational:
I was enthralled by this delightful, healing, and eye opening crediting over the wonder works of scientific endeavor made by woman--unsung heroines who did not flinch one bit from their true calling, what for all the drowning out and dumbing down of class ostracism inundating them and their sisters in their times. These Ladies are the truest measure of what is called a benchmark in the progress of humanity to wake up and rise to The Greatest Challenge: to free the mind, the spirit, the yoke of history's circumstance, to unite us in peace, recognition, respect, and unqualified defference to all who carry forth the Light. From my heart, Thank You Sharon Bertsch McGrayne! And for those for whom it is easier to quip, 'a woman's place is in the home, raising children and so forth....' I'll just add, we got BILLIONS of 'em.

Product Description:
In 1989 Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery that normal genes under certain conditions can cause cancer. In this book, Bishop tells us how he and Varmus made their momentous discovery. More than a lively account of the making of a brilliant scientist, How to Win the Nobel Prize is also a broader narrative combining two major and intertwined strands of medical history: the long and ongoing struggles to control infectious diseases and to find and attack the causes of cancer.

Alongside his own story, that of a youthful humanist evolving into an ambivalent medical student, an accidental microbiologist, and finally a world-class researcher, Bishop gives us a fast-paced and engrossing tale of the microbe hunters. It is a narrative enlivened by vivid anecdotes about our deadliest microbial enemies--the Black Death, cholera, syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria, smallpox, HIV--and by biographical sketches of the scientists who led the fight against these scourges.

Bishop then provides an introduction for nonscientists to the molecular underpinnings of cancer and concludes with an analysis of many of today's most important science-related controversies--ranging from stem cell research to the attack on evolution to scientific misconduct. How to Win the Nobel Prize affords us the pleasure of hearing about science from a brilliant practitioner who is a humanist at heart. Bishop's perspective will be valued by anyone interested in biomedical research and in the past, present, and future of the battle against cancer.



Customer Review: Noble Work:
This is, of course, not a how-to on winning the Nobel Prize. Rather it is Bishop's personal account of what happened when he won the Nobel Prize in "physiology or medicine" in 1989. This is told in a rather light-hearted, self deprecating way that is at once amusing and informative--he provides plenty of background on the prize itself, as well as the logistics of the ceremony of the presentation.

Actually the book is something of a grab-bag of topics. It is partly autobiographical, partly historical accounts of cancer research, and partly a commentary on the issues of the public's perception and misperceptions on science and society. And partly about the discovery that he and Harold Varmus made--the first oncogene.

Although I much enjoyed the other parts, it was to learn something of the discovery itself that brought me to buy the book. And here I must say I was a little disappointed. Basically, they found that one of the four genes carried by the Rous sarcoma virus is also found in the dna of many species of animals, including man. In fact it is found in normal cells, as well as those that are cancerous, and is expressed in both. I found this all a bit confusing. Is it the over-expression of the SRC gene responsible for some cancers, or is it a damaged form of the gene that is responsible? Is it an oncogene or a proto-oncogene? What does it do?

The current paradigm for cancer causation is that one of a few oncogenes and/or tumor supressor genes malfunction to give rise to cancer. I had hoped for a clearer statement of this rather dogmatic idea, and perhaps even some pros and cons for it. What makes a gene qualify for oncogene status? This is never made clear. What has become of SRC? What has been found out in the 30 years since the discovery? Has anyone ever seen a cancer in which only the supposed oncogene is different from that seen in the normal cell? I don't think so.

An opposing theory to this is that the fundamental event in cancer is aneuploidy: the cancer cell contains an abnormal number of chromosomes, thereby over-expressing some thousands of genes at once. Surprisingly, Bishop does not mention this alternative at all. Maybe the oncogene hypothesis is just plain wrong after all. And Peter Duesberg's paradigm is closer to the truth.

Bishop's last chapter covers some of the public controversies: stem cells and cloning, genetic testing and evolution. He gives us his two cents worth on all of them, and I can't help but think he is right on most of what he says. He's got a lot of common sense, and expresses it pretty well.

Product Description:

In The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize, Doherty recounts his unlikely path to becoming a Nobel Laureate. Beginning with his humble origins in Australia, he tells how he developed an interest in immunology and describes his award-winning, influential work with Rolf Zinkernagel on T-cells and the nature of immune defense. In prose that is at turns amusing and astute, Doherty reveals how his nonconformist upbringing, sense of being an outsider, and search for different perspectives have shaped his life and work.

Doherty offers a rare, insider's look at the realities of being a research scientist. He lucidly explains his own scientific work and how research projects are selected, funded, and organized; the major problems science is trying to solve; and the rewards and pitfalls of a career in scientific research. For Doherty, science still plays an important role in improving the world, and he argues that scientists need to do a better job of making their work more accessible to the public.

Throughout the book, Doherty explores the stories of past Nobel winners and considers some of the crucial scientific debates of our time, including the safety of genetically modified foods and the tensions between science and religion. He concludes with some "tips" on how to win a Nobel Prize, including advice on being persistent, generous, and culturally aware, and he stresses the value of evidence. The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Noble Prize is essential reading for anyone interested in a career in science.

Customer Review: Nobel Prize:
Professor Peter C. Doherty was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with Swiss colleague, Rolf Zingerngel, in 1996 for discovering `the nature of the cellular immune defence', and was also recognised as Australian of the Year in 1997.

Brief history of Noble Prize/s and autobiography of his childhood. Technical in places on immunology. A very informative read.



Customer Review: More than just a memoir of a prize-winner - and important to any aspiring scientist:
In 1996 author Peter Doherty found himself receiving the Nobel Price for Physiology or Medicine from the king of Sweden - an unlikely event for a boy who grew up in an Australian working neighborhood where his schoolmates ended up working in the local slaughterhouse. His journey from Australia, his evolving interest in immunology, and his eventual award-winning work are revealed in a memoir which surveys the life of a research scientist, discussing how scientific projects are selected, funded and organized. This approach makes this more than just a memoir of a prize-winner - and important to any aspiring scientist.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch


Customer Review: good reading:
It is not a How-To book to get the Super Prize, it is a journey of a Nobel Prize winner from his childhood to manage to get a nobel prize.

I really like it



Customer Review: A Life in Science, its Rewards, Failings, and the Future:
This book is part memoir, part autobiography, part philosophy, and part several other things, and the result is a delightful read. The title needs to be taken just a bit in jest as no body can tell you how to win the big one. In science that's the Nobel, in sports its the Superbowl or World Series, in acting a Tony or Emmy.

What the book can tell you is how the big one changes your life around. When the Nobel committee called to inform him that he was a winner they said, 'I'm going to give you ten minutes to call your families and friends before I release it to the press. After that expect the phone to be continuously busy.' In the case of the Nobel, a surprising number of people can't get back to the life of research they previously did, they are too busy making speeches and the like.

Another part of the book is on the conflict between science and religion. Back in Galileo's day the Church had decreed that everything went around the Earth, the center of God's perfect universe. Looking through his home made telescope, Galileo saw that moons went around Jupiter. He was shown the instruments of torture and kept under house arrest for the remainder of his life. After this, astronomical research moved to areas not under the tight control of the church.

Now it seems to be the time for biology to be held in contempt. There exists the possibility that religion will stop biology, at least in the United States, substituting faith in the Bible to replace observable facts. This is pretty scary in view of AIDS, bird flu, and other possible pandemics.

Finally there is a section on What's Next. There are too many thoughts here that I can't even begin to do justice to them in a list. Lets just say that there are tremendous problems, tremendous opportunities.

Product Description:
When Professor Isidore Cantor reveals his latest breakthrough in cancer research, his promising research fellow, Dr. Jeremiah Stafford, has only to conduct the experiment and win Cantor the Nobel prize. But how far will Stafford go to guarantee the results? Carl Djerassi draws from his career as a world-famous scientist to describe the fierce competition driving scientific superstars in this gripping novel.



Customer Review: Cantor's Dilemma is to chemical research as ER is to medicine:
As a chemist and an active researcher, I approached Cantor's Dilemma with a different type of trepidation than most readers probably do. I knew I would have no problem understand the lingo and the science (Djerassi himself appears in several of my favourite reference textbooks and is often put forward as the prime example of scientific research driving societal ethics). No, I was worried that the book would disappoint in providing a watered-down or unrealistic representation of research. In some ways the latter is true (more on that below) but the book was thoroughly enjoyable once I recognised this important point: like an episode of the TV show ER, everything that happens in the book COULD theoretically happen, although it's unlikely it would all happen in a 1-hour time slot, or in a mere 300 pages.

The plot: the eponymous protagonist "I.C." Cantor dreams up a grand-unified theory behind the mechanism of cancer. He then proceeds to come up with an experiment to prove his theory and sets his top post-doctoral researcher, Stafford, on the project. After the experiment is performed and his thesis seemingly proven, Cantor and Stafford are awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. That is when the problems start: a fellow cancer researcher, the only one to whom Cantor has divulged the details of his experiment, cannot replicate it. Suspicion clouds the relationship between Cantor and Stafford as the latter's lab book is woefully incomplete and an anonymous tip implied to Cantor that Stafford was falsifying data. Sensing something is amiss, the researcher who cannot replicate the results starts subtly blackmailing Cantor, fishing for a Nobel for himself.

Certainly, there are clear-cut cases of academic fraud in the physical sciences: in my field (conducting materials) there have been a few notable cases of falsification of data. This is not limited to American universities - one recent case occurred in Korea, while another was in an American private lab (perpetrated by a Swiss national). As the book points out, these frauds are always exposed (at least, if they are important enough to be influential). Djerassi is too savvy to allow his protagonist to be caught in such a clear-cut case of fraud. This is why the book deserves a full 5 stars - Cantor is almost a classic tragic hero. His personal foibles and flaws inevitably lead him to a no-win scenario: he must succumb to the threats of his colleague or risk exposure and disgrace for something that isn't really his fault (if any data WAS falsified, it was by Stafford the post-doc, not Cantor).

The best parts of the book actually take place in Sweden, at the presentation of the Nobel Prizes. Unlike some reviewers seem to think, Djerassi himself has not won this prize (although he has won the Priestley medal, which is the highest American honour for a chemist). However, in these chapters he writes with an authority and skill that isn't as obvious in the rest of the book. Similarly, when his characters are involved in the everyday stuff - students asking career advice, for example, the characters are fully representative of the average professor at any academic institution from Harvard to the smallest liberal-arts college.

Quite aside from the main plot is the general presentation of the life of academics presented in the book. I was bemused by the extra-curricular shenanigans that fill much of the book and the fact that all the profs are "renaissance men". A university professor is just as likely to listen to Guns `n' Roses as Beethoven or BB King (I have CDs by all these people). Just as "Animal House" represents the fraternity lifestyle in a bizarre counter-universe sort of way, so too does "Cantor's Dilemma" represent a surreal superposition of modern-day research and the kind of hippy counter-culture that Djerassi himself helped usher into being with his discovery of oral contraception. Written in the mid-80s (published in 1989), Djerassi does not seem to have grasped the importance of the tectonic shift in academia away from liberalism to consumerism that was occurring at the time (students no longer attend university to learn per se, they go to get a degree that will allow them to get a good job). For example, when a professor beds a student from his first-year class, he only seems concerned with allaying her fear that she might become pregnant: "Don't worry, I've been fixed". Instead, the late `80s was dominated by AIDS and a few high-profile date-rape cases. To see professors so cavalierly disregarding current sexual mores is quaint, to put it mildly - if such a thing came to the notice of the upper administration of my university, the professor in question would quickly find himself escorted from campus by security and his office reassigned to a new faculty member by the time he got his pink slip. But again, for all its foibles, the book was extremely entertaining and I will likely be recommending it to my chemistry and academic friends for years to come.

Customer Review: accurate view of scientific research:
The book is a rather dry text. Much like its subject, scientists and their research. But it rings true. The reader gets a glimpse as to how scientists act, at the highest levels of cutting edge research.

There are amusing views of the jockeying for publication of results in a top level journal. Even if perhaps the results are not fully pinned down or definitive. Perhaps the best audience for this book is undergrads and grads. They are often the footsoldiers in a professor's lab, and can best appreciate some of the maneuverings for research credit that go on.

In one passage, there is a sideways reference to the author. Not by name, of course. But as a prominent scientist at Stanford. See if you can find this.

Customer Review: it never hurts to have a dictionary close by:
Admittedly, I am not a science-minded person. I approached this novel with caution, expecting it to be overly-technical and boring. Nevertheless, I gave it a chance and found it to be not only intellectual, but highly entertaining.

CANTOR'S DILEMMA moves along at a brisk pace, only rarely getting bogged down in technical terminology and scientific analysis. For example, one such passage early on in the book states: "While the radioactive labels were intended to locate the protein in different cell fractions, the C-13 labeled arginine would shed light on the spatial arrangement of this amino acid within the protein molecule through its nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum. Only a cell biologist with a thorough background in chemistry would have come up with such an idea." To which I can only reply "OK...I'll take your word for it..." Indeed, there are numerous instances in the book where the average reader will have to take Djerassi's word for it. However, since Djerassi is a world-renowned scientist himself, I feel pretty comfortable in believing he knows what he's talking about.

There is only one shortcoming that really stands out in Djerassi's writing: his portrayal of female characters. The characters themselves are strong and independent women, however, they are relatively flat. They come across as thinly-veiled excuses for Djerassi to discuss a major problem in the scientific world: the lack of women among the upper echelons of the scientific community. In this noble endeavor, Djerassi discusses several solid points about gender inequality, making the hollowness of his female characters, in my opinion, excusable because they serve a higher purpose.

In CANTOR'S DILEMMA, Djerassi exhibits a flare for storytelling and shows that he has substantial literary chops to go along with his numerous scientific awards. This work provided a level of intellectual stimulation that I haven't received from a book in a while.


Customer Review: Excellent, and not all that fictional:
"The Double Helix", James Watson's classic account of the elucidation of the structure of DNA, is often cited as an excellent description of how science is really conducted. However, this work of fiction supplants it. Djerassi describes many of the calculations, both professional and interpersonal, that go into the making and reporting of a scientific discovery. He covers everything, from the prestige accorded to anything from Harvard, to the assignment of referees to examine submitted papers.
Professor Isidore Cantor, a researcher with his own large laboratory, has an "aha" moment, where he suddenly understands the mechanism behind a type of cancer. He presents the idea at a conference and everyone immediately realizes that if it can be confirmed, it is Nobel Prize material. Cantor assigns the experimental verification to Jeremiah Stafford, a postdoc that he considers his best experimentalist. With the assignment comes a great deal of pressure, as the experiment must be completed in a few months. Stafford succeeds, but under the strain, he does not completely document the lab work. This creates a problem when another lab cannot duplicate the work and the process that leads to them sharing a Nobel Prize for the work has already begun.
Cantor and Stafford then try to duplicate the experiment and all appears to go well. However, an anonymous tipster informs Cantor that Stafford re-entered the lab at a late hour, which leads Cantor to believe that Stafford is altering the experiment. This prospect terrifies Cantor so much that he devises a second experiment that he carries out in his own private lab, where no one else is allowed to enter under any circumstances. That experiment succeeds, although there is a rift between them, as Cantor is not completely sure that Stafford did not massage his experiments and data to create the desired results. Hence the title of the book, where Cantor has a difficult time deciding how to handle his doubts regarding his junior colleague.
It is difficult for someone who is not in the competitive area of science to understand Cantor's fear. Having to retract a published experiment is one of the greatest public humiliations that a scientist can endure. If scientists were polled, I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority would readily endure a severe public flogging rather than have to admit professional failure. The shadowy and often unstated worlds of recommendations, reciprocal praise and assistance; competition to be first, the proper ways to criticize the work of a colleague and even the "proper" way to have a sexual relationship with a student much younger than you are all covered. I consider this to be the best book on how science is really done that has ever been published. I spent two years as part of a physics research group and I can state from personal experience that the descriptions of how group competition takes place are right on.

Customer Review: a over simplification of reality:
This little book (Cantor's dilemma) came to my attention ironically not because of its well celebrated English version, but because of the new Chinese translation, which bore a new name (The prisoner of the Nobel Prize). Anyway, I spent a whole evening enthusiastically (at the beginning) perusing it (the English version), but was left with more or less joy.
Many people in Amazon.com have praised this little book presumably without any reservation. I would also first congratulate the author's great effort to write a novel on scientific ethics, and in particular for the psychoanalysis of scientists. However, in terms of literature and science, I would say this book is not worth much attentions.
The plot in this novel is too simple. A serious professor had a brilliant idea (which is flawed based on biology, by the way), two worked experiments (probably), and the Nobel prize, but suffered by unverified experiments due to suspicious manipulations of his postdoc. It surprised me that he won the prize within a year. This oversimplified the reality. If the professor didn't publish his experiment details and furthermore the experiments couldn't be replicated in other labs (officially), it is impossible to get the Nobel prize, let alone within a year. It would be better that the professor didn't get the Nobel prize and was constantly suffered from unverified experiments, rumors of data fabrication, and science politics. The deft handling of these crisis is more interesting for future academic seekers.
One of the key components in this book is about research ethics. We have heard many rumors about research ethics. This book talked about a similar situation occurred in the Noble Laurel David Baltimore's lab, in which a postdoc was involved some manipulations of data. I like the author's way of presentation: hinted but never gave a definite answer whether the postdoc did something wrong with the experiment or not.
In terms of science ethics, I would like recommend people reviewing one of the most horrible studies in modern history: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. This study was initiated by the United States Public Health Service, together with the Tuskegee Institute in 1932. The study recruited 399 black men diagnosed with syphilis in Macon County, Alabama to determine the effects of untreated syphilis. The study would last until 1970, way after the discovery of penicillin in 1943, which is the most effective drug to treat syphilis. Unfortunately, these black men, with the highest education at 7th grade, were only treated by aspirin and an iron supplement. It was till mass media caught this horror that halted this experiments. By then, many had died of complications of syphilis.
Although the book spent quite some length talking about trust, responsibility, authorship , lab rules, and in particular the peer pressure and jealousy, advisor seeking, tenure system, and gender discrimination, the author barely scratched the surface of publishing process, grant application and management, and other important research activities. It is possible that the author thought his intended readers are most likely undergraduates or beginning graduates. However, beginning graduates are eager to know how these research activities are like so that they can decide whether they want to seek academic jobs or not. Most time advisors are reluctant to talk about these issues with new graduate students.
The author also devoted some pages on sex, especially on teacher-student type of sex. I am not sure why he blended sex in this book but it did add some vintages in it. The depicting of female scholars in this novel is too optimistic. That a fresh female chemistry PhD can get an assistant professorship in Harvard, Cal tech, and Wisconsin is amazing, if not shocking.
In terms of writing skills, the author seemed to have adopted a film making style. However, sometimes background events cut into flow of story too abruptly. Furthermore, the author lacked the ability to write juicy words when he was describing romantic events. His view of sex and romance was also old fashioned.
I think the ending is the worst part of this novel. As we all know, academic people are good at insinuating things. A famous professor will never write a blunt insulting letter to another professor. I guess the author tried to give solutions to all problems left in the novel instead of giving some hints. This reflects his lack of confidence to his readers, which are at least college students ( I doubt a not prepared high school student can understand many concepts discussed in his book).
In summary, if you don't know much about scientists, this book will give you a good kick start. If you are a graduate student who talk with your advisors very often, this book may be too simple to you. If you are a seasoned researcher, it is probably wiser to use your time on other amusements.

Product Description:
This book presents a biography of Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize for Science (Physics 1979), who was nevertheless excommunicated and branded as a heretic in his own country. His achievements are often overlooked, even besmirched. Realizing that the whole world had to be his stage, he pioneered the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, a vital focus of Third World science which remains as his monument. A staunch Muslim, he was ashamed of the decline of science in the heritage of Islam, and struggled doggedly to restore it to its former glory. Undermined by his excommunication, these valiant efforts were doomed.



Customer Review: Remembering Abdus Salam:
My husband, George Gwilt, read Cosmic Anger and these are his remarks.

I first met Abdus Salam over sixty years ago when we were both attending supervision by Fred Hoyle at Johns College in Cambridge. The book's description of Abdus brought back vivid memories including even his gentle high pitched voice as he told me how to look for a lost object. "If it is not in one place look in another."

The book covers many aspects of Abdus Salam's life including his personal life, his contribution to particle physics, his establishment of and involvement with the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste and his role in politics.

Elected to the Royal Society as its youngest Fellow and also a Nobel Prize winner. Abdus Salam was an extraordinary person.

When I first knew Abdus, India was still united and he told me that there was going to be trouble. Trouble did indeed come as a result of the conflicts between the various religions including Hindu and Muslim, as Cosmic Anger explains. A large part of the book is taken up with religion. Abdus was a member of the small Ahmadi sect, which is a part of Islam. In September 1974 this sect was declared by Pakistan 'non-Muslim'. Because of this Pakistan, which had become his home country, did not accord him the recognition which was his due.

I think that, if this book were read, and really understood, by politicians not only of Pakistan, but worldwide the world would become a better place.

I found Cosmic Anger readable, enjoyable and instructive.

Customer Review: Abdus Salam - An Uncommon Muslim Scientist:
"Cosmic Anger" --- Abdus Salam-- The First Muslim Nobel Scientist" is is written by a physicist/ science writer-Gordon Fraser. This tightly and handsomely-bound 300-page book is a must read. The book is thoroughly researched and meticulously-detailed with ample references. The best picture of this great man from Jhang, Punjab is at the Nobel awards ceremony itself where he is resplendent in his traditional turban, sherwani, white shalwar with Multani khusas delivering his stirring speech about Science and Islam.

Coming from a modest Ahmadi family (a minority sect that has been ostracized and discriminated against in Pakistan), he was a brilliant young student who stood first in Punjab securing unbelievably high marks with his picture published in the local newspaper, he progressed fast on the academic ladder, graduating from Govt. College Lahore, went on to Oxford, England, became a mathemetician, worked in the famous Cavendish Physics laboratory, came back to Govt. College, Lahore, went back to England and started teaching at the Imperial College in London. He had a one year stint in the fabled Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ with Einstein in permanent residence there and J. Robert Openheimer at the helm. He started his Theoretical Physics Institute in Trieste, Italy for the 3rd world country scientists and became an ambassador-at-large of the non-western physicists. He became a polished speaker, teacher and enjoyed tremendous respect in academic circles. He was prolific in research and in churning out papers for publication.

His life story is stupendously fascinating. His achievements, somehow ignored and under-valued in his own country were many and varied. With his multi-faceted life is detailed with sensitivity and authoritatively. The book is also a primer of the life, times and theories of major players in Theoretical Physics in the 20th century. The book is a fascinating read and is recommended highly.

Customer Review: Wonderfully intriguing:
Abdus Salam was one of the most important physicists of the latter half of the twentieth century and the story of his journey from a poor village in the Punjab to the Nobel Prize would be fascinating and remarkable in its own right. But Salam was also a devout Muslim and pursued his devotion to his religion and its culture, especially its scientific heritage, with an equal passion.

This delightfully crafted work explores both sides of Salam's life discussing not only his most obvious achievement in formulating the most successful theory of modern physics but also his tireless support of scientific education in the third world. Mr. Fraser discusses science, politics and history with equal effectiveness. I earned my Ph.D. under Salam but still learned a great deal more about him from this book - both about his private life and his relations with his scientific colleagues.

This book will have immense appeal to any intelligent reader. Heartily recommended.

Product Description:




Customer Review: Shockley is not broken - this is a deception.:
William Shockley is the greatest genius ever lived. It is wrong to title the book "Broken Genius". Shockley is not broken in any way.

Customer Review: Is it fair?:
Who has been the most influential person in history?.... Typical answers to this question are Einstein, Newton, Guttenberg, Gates, Jobs....etc...etc...etc.... However, you will never hear Schockley even though we enjoy lots of things we take for granted like this internet tool and computers just to name a few. If you ever wonder why technology has been moving so rapidly over such a few years span, one of the answers is the transistor...Well, transistor = Schockley... you do the math. Unfortunately he fell from graces on many people's eyes but I won't tell you why. I'll let you be the judge of that.... read the book, it's good.

Customer Review: A good chronicle of William Shockley's life.:
Joel Shurkin, a science writer and author, has written this informative but hardly authoritative biography of William Shockley, a Nobel laureate and scientist whose accomplishments include:

- helping the US Navy to win the Second World War with his spectacular work in Operational Research,
- his pioneering work on nuclear fission that was suppressed because it was an embarrassment to the government labs he beat to the punch,
- his invention of a transistor,
- his close proximity to the invention of the first transistor, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize,
- his being an accomplished professor at Stanford
- and his unhappy championing of a link between race and intelligence, which brought him into the close proximity of eugenic thinking, and made many deeply dislike him, such that his public appearances were often accompanied by demonstrations.

I enjoyed this book as a chronicle of Shockley's life, but found it to be disappointing in that I felt that it failed to explain why Shockley did what he did, most particularly, why did Shockley insist on publicly discussing his eugenic views? Was it because he lived for the notoriety? Was it because due to a form of egomania? Can it be attributed to political views? Shurkin does not really tell us.

By all accounts, Shockley was a very difficult, perhaps insufferable, person, who, by the time he breathed his last, had few friends. To my mind it's clear that he suffered from what psychologists would describe as a personality disorder, and maybe even something similar to Asperger's. Shurkin explains these facts in a single paragraph; yet perhaps more than any other fact, they explain the trajectory of his life, the purported focus of this book. Why is more space not given to explaining what these means, and what it entailed for Shockley, and, even, to what extent his seemingly irrational choices were not even voluntary acts on his part?

While this book offers a great deal of information about Shockley's life, in my opinion it is regrettably, perhaps woefully, short on analyses and appraisals of the information it has to offer.

Customer Review: Essential Biography in the History of Silicon Valley:
The winners write the history, and the history of Silicon Valley is no exception. Until this book William Shockley, if he was known at all, was thought of as the eccentric Nobel Prize winner who became an intellectual outcast because of his eugenics beliefs and as the bad manager whose employees quit and founded Fairchild and Intel.

For those who know a bit more about the history of Silicon Valley technology, William Shockley is known as the founder of the Valley's first semiconductor company. Shockley recruited and assembled the seminal team that was the progenitor of every other semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. His instincts for talent-spotting were phenomenal, but they were matched by a massive lack of judgment about how to build products customers would buy and a complete lack of the insights necessary to motivate and manage an entrepreneurial company.

Joel Shurkin does a good job in telling the story of not just Schokley Semiconductor, but the interesting life surrounding it all- the rise and fall - of William Schockley. A great read.

Customer Review: difficult to put down once you pick this up....:
Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age

Compliment to the writer who made the life of William Shockley so much more interesting than it really was. Shockley's inventions in technology is profound however, Shockley's life is really not that interesting. In essence, Shockley was a smart man, went to top schools, recruited by top people and top corporations, invented a lot to help our country (during the wars) and invented a lot to help the world (especially in his transistor and silicon invention), married twice, made some babies, toward the later part of his life, he got into study of genes and racial profiling in IQ and then he died at 80. If you are curios about what Shockley's inventions were, you would be fascinated by this documentation and litany of items listed. If you want to know the history of IQ controversy or whether blacks' IQ are truly inferior to whites, you will see lurid details on this. However, if you are like me, reading this book looking for fascinating human stories (ala Huge Hefner of the Playboy enterprise or Rupert Murdoch of the News Corps or even Mao Tze Tung of Communist China), you may be disappointed. In reality, Shockley lived a typical American suburbia life (the most exciting part of his life may be going to Norway to obtain his Nobel). You don't see him hanging out at the Playboy mansion at 70s with the hottest super models like Huge Hefner or flying to China to close a major media deal like Rupert Murdoch. Shockley's life was boring. May be he had bad relations with his kids (but then who does not?) and he was also not good at being nice in dealing with people but most engineers are like that, nothing new here. So, full credit to the writer who successfully made William Shockley's life so much more interesting than it really was - by applying an approach of story telling to add context and flavor - for example, in the story of his first company and the departure of the 11 original scientists Shockley hired, the writer discussed how Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left and started their own company. This made the whole story more interesting. Now we know Gordon Moore was rated by Shockley's IQ tests as "not a good manager". Making dull topic interesting, one win for the author.

Five Stars to the author for making a dull topic interesting.
Three Stars to the content (the life of William Shockley - boring stuff). A reminder that we should go out and truly have fun in life. Go to a night club, fool around with some girls, go to a foreign country and do some bumgy jumping. Don't live life like Shockley.

Product Description:
In celebration of the centennial of the Nobel Prize in 2001, this book offers a clear perspective on the development of human civilization over the past hundred years. Softcover.

Customer Review: the best analysis of Nobel Laureates in book form:
Written in 1979, this book is still perhaps the most comprehensive and readable analysis of American Nobel Laureates. Zuckerman conducted an extensive survey, with numerous interviews of living Laureates. The book gives a fascinating look at the highest strata of science.

There are many nuggets of interesting facts tucked away in the book. You probably won't be surprised that the Nobel has the highest name recognition amongst laymen. But did you know that even amongst scientists, this is true? The book notes how scientists in a particular field like chemistry know about the top prizes in it. But rarely about their analogs in other fields. The only exceptions are the Nobels.

And how much is a Nobel really worth? Not just the cash award, but the extra income afterwards. From such activities as chairing conferences, writing introductions to texts, and winning other awards. She found that the total value is a function of how long the winner lives after winning. The younger you are, the more you eventually make.

Somewhat hilariously and ironically, Zuckerman also found that the winner's productivity tends to decline after winning the Nobel, as measured by the output of scientific papers. The increased demands on the winner's time from the new ancillary activities often makes it harder to be as productive. Though this can be counterbalanced by the now far greater ease of obtaining research grants.

Other books that survey Laureates tend to be about the science, naturally. This book is about the sociology of what tends to happen after winning, and that is independent of the particular research issues.