Curious Minds
John Brockman
Pantheon Books
"What makes a child decide to become a scientist?<br />"-For Robert Sapolsky-Stanford professor of biology-it was an argument with a rabbi over apassage in the Bible.<br />-Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to a volume of Einstein's work, picked up as a diversion from heartbreak.<br />-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, apsychologist and the author of "Flow," found his calling through Descartes.<br />Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson . . . 27 scientists in all write about what it was thatsent them on the path to their life's work. Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in stories that invite us to consider what it is-and what it isn't-that sets the scientific mindapart. "From the Trade Paperback edition."