This book can be summarized in two sentences. Opportunities, personal drive and efforts, family upbringings and cultural background are important factors in a person’s life. He is likely to succeed if those factors have a compounding, positive effect.
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“A Slot Machine, A Broken Test Tube” by Salvador E. Luria
Judging a Book by the Cover What stuck me the most before opening this book was Dr. Luria’s photo on the back cover. His alert eyes behind dark rimmed glasses, thin, pressed lips with an ironic upward curl in the left corner, his head tilting slightly backward in an air of aloofness. I thought perhaps he was not as communicative as some of the other scientist-authors whose autobiographies I had […]
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“Nature and the Greeks” by Erwin Schrödinger
Scientists work within a philosophical framework, though it is perhaps not as pronounced as that of philosophers. A scientific theory is an interpretation of empirical data, and it is often the case that numerous theories can describe the same set of data, which one the scientist chooses depends on his/her philosophy. Empirical evidence drives the advance of science by eliminating bad theories, and forcing the scientists to admit their own […]
Read more“What is Life? Mind And Matter” by Erwin Schrödinger
The Character of Life Watson and Crick, in their respective accounts of the discovery of the structure of DNA, both cited “What is Life” as their source of inspiration. It’s amazing how a physicist’s insights triggered a breakthrough in molecular biology. Schrödinger, based on the principles of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics and very limited experimental data, deduced with amazing accuracy the size and character of the genetic material, later known […]
Read more“The Double Helix” by James D. Watson
Comparing this book with Francis Crick’s “What Mad Pursuit”, which covers the discovery of the structure of DNA from a different perspective, I enjoy reading Crick a lot more. While this book provides a more colorful account of the lives and characteristics of the scientists involved in the work, I find Crick’s insightful and humorous commentaries on scientific discovery more stimulating and refreshing.
Read more“What Mad Pursuit” by Francis Crick
An Extraordinary Journey Dr. Crick shares with the readers his personal journey of scientific discovery. Starting with how he chose molecular biology as his pursuit, the “gossip test — what you are really interested in is what you gossip about”, leading up to the discovery of structure of DNA and the genetic code, and eventually the study of neurobiology when he passed 60, “at my time of life I had […]
Read more“Synaptic Self” by Joseph LeDoux
Well-structured and comprehensive overview of the historical development and recent advances in neuroscience, with focus on the functional architecture of the brain, especially the amygdala and working memory. I read this book shortly after “In Search of Memory” by Eric Kandel. There are some overlaps between the two, but overall they complement each other very well, approaching the same problems from different perspectives.
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