Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist

"When We Were Kids" is a book of original, autobiographical essays by twenty-seven scientists, including Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins, Daniel C Dennett, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Lynn Margulis, Steven Pinker and Robert M Sapolsky. Each writer attempts to identify that moment or those influences in his or her youth which triggered the determination to become a scientist. Was there a particular event or set of circumstances? To what extent did parents, peers of teachers contribute? Why mathematics rather than psychology; why biology rather than physics? What were the turning points, mistakes, epiphanies? Personal, passionate, revealing, enthralling, "When We Were Kids" tells as much about life as it does about science.