Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist.CURIOUS MINDS: How a Child Becomes a Scientist JOHN BROCKMAN Biographical pages for John Brockman:
To motivate readers to study science, Brockman set out to find the common threads and defining moments in the childhoods of some of today's greatest scientific minds. He asked these people to reveal the turning points, influences, epiphanies, peers, and mentors in their lives and careers. The responses he got make for revealing accounts and entertaining reading. People such as Lee Smolin Lee Smolin (born 1955 in New York City) is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. , Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18 1954) is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer known for his spirited and wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. , Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, and others report that they became intrigued and inspired by factors as disparate as reading Descartes, studying Hebrew, and watching Gilligan's Island Gilligan’s Island comedy about a party shipwrecked on a South Pacific island. [TV: Terrace, I, 312–313] See : Castaway on television. AS these scientific luminaries point out, there's no single recipe for cooking up a passion for science. Richard Dawkins Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. writes about the influence of reading Dr. Doolittle stories, while Janna Levin cites Carl Sagan as her inspiration for learning more about the universe. However, a pattern emerges in this series of 27 essays. Each individual had a strong curiosity and passion for learning about many things as a child. Pantheon, 2004, 236 p., hardcover, $23.95. |
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