What do you think?
Rate this book
Make: Maverick Scientist: My Adventures as an Amateur Scientist
Maverick Scientist is the memoir of Forrest Mims, who forged a distinguished scientific career despite having no academic training in science. Named one of the "50 Best Brains in Science" by Discover magazine, Forrest shares what sparked his childhood curiosity and relates a lifetime of improbable, dramatic, and occasionally outright dangerous experiences in the world of science. At thirteen he invented a new method of rocket control. At seventeen he designed and built an analog computer that could translate Russian into English and that the Smithsonian collected as an example of an early hobby computer. While majoring in government at Texas A&M University, Forrest created a hand-held, radar-like device to help guide the blind. And during his military service, he had to be given special clearance to do top secret laser research at the Air Force Weapons Lab. Why? Because while he lacked the required engineering degree, they wanted his outside-the-box thinking on the project. He went on to co-found MITS, Inc., producer of the first commercially successful personal computer, wrote a series of electronics books for Radio Shack that sold more than seven million copies, and designed the music synthesizer circuit that became known as the infamous Atari Punk Console. All this came before he started consulting for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and NOAA's famous Mauna Loa Observatory, and earning the prestigious Rolex Award. This intimate portrait of a self-made scientist shares a revelatory look inside the scientific community, and tells the story of a lifelong learner who stood by his convictions even when pressured by the establishment to get in line with conventional wisdom. With dozens of personal photos and illustrations, Maverick Scientist serves as proof that to be a scientist, you simply need to do science.
345 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2024
4 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 10, 2024
MAVERICK SCIENTIST
By Forrest Mims III
It has been said that behind every successful scientist is a good engineer and behind every good engineer is a good mechanic.
Forrest Mims combines all of these abilities.
He comes up with good research problems, designs instruments to solve those problems and then builds and operates those instruments.
This book details his accomplishments first as an electronic engineer, then a software engineer and finally as an atmospheric scientist.
In addition to building and operating his own research station--Geronimo Creek Observatory--he has gone on numerous expeditions to measure ozone, dust and water vapor in the field.
This book is a demonstration that doing research is not a matter of having the proper credentials. Rather it is necessary to apply a scientific way of thinking. Trained as a professional writer, he makes this point repeatedly in a highly readable manner.
The amount of detail concerning events, people and places is astounding. All through his career he has kept detailed diaries and notes. So for any given effort he tells us where it happened, what he did and who was involved. We get the entire list of reporter's questions answered--who, what, where, when, how and why.
When he started in atmospheric science, his work was denigrated as that of an amateur using toy instruments. Then he found and corrected errors in NASA's reported satellite ozone measurements and began to gain respect.
Unlike engineering and mechanics, where output can be easily judged (does it work and how well?), science is a social club in which members agree or disagree on the legitimacy of a result or theory.
He became a member of that club and over the years has made many original contributions to atmospheric science and raised and answered a number of intriguing questions.
In addition to his major theme that doing science is a matter of thinking and not of credentials, he details discrimination due to his rejection of Darwin evolutionary theory in favor of the idea that our world was designed and created by an intelligent force.
This reminds us that scientific knowledge is an accumulation of successively more accurate measurements and theories and is not immutable truth set in stone. For instance in the last six decades the estimated age of our universe has steadily increased from about five billion years to about twenty billion.
In our present era when science is treated as a form of religion in which techno-priests dictate false beliefs, it is valuable to hear from someone who seeks truth in a traditional scientific manner, from which many credentialed scientists have wandered.
We are reminded that science was alive and well long before PhDs came on the scene as a form of accreditation. Although this seems to be a good idea, actual observation indicates that perhaps one in ten PhDs are capable of doing original research while the rest are content with regurgitating whatever is currently believed, often selling their reputations to "discover" and promote financially manipulated lies.
This book includes some enjoyable stories of adventures that accompany field work, usefulness of science fairs and controversies with lesser minds.
In all, it is a testament to a life of scientific thinking and action by a man who always seeks truth and has often found it.
His primary thesis embodies the essence of true science as opposed to accepting "scientific" dogma:
"If you are confident of your data but a scientist is not, believe your data not the scientist."
By Forrest Mims III
It has been said that behind every successful scientist is a good engineer and behind every good engineer is a good mechanic.
Forrest Mims combines all of these abilities.
He comes up with good research problems, designs instruments to solve those problems and then builds and operates those instruments.
This book details his accomplishments first as an electronic engineer, then a software engineer and finally as an atmospheric scientist.
In addition to building and operating his own research station--Geronimo Creek Observatory--he has gone on numerous expeditions to measure ozone, dust and water vapor in the field.
This book is a demonstration that doing research is not a matter of having the proper credentials. Rather it is necessary to apply a scientific way of thinking. Trained as a professional writer, he makes this point repeatedly in a highly readable manner.
The amount of detail concerning events, people and places is astounding. All through his career he has kept detailed diaries and notes. So for any given effort he tells us where it happened, what he did and who was involved. We get the entire list of reporter's questions answered--who, what, where, when, how and why.
When he started in atmospheric science, his work was denigrated as that of an amateur using toy instruments. Then he found and corrected errors in NASA's reported satellite ozone measurements and began to gain respect.
Unlike engineering and mechanics, where output can be easily judged (does it work and how well?), science is a social club in which members agree or disagree on the legitimacy of a result or theory.
He became a member of that club and over the years has made many original contributions to atmospheric science and raised and answered a number of intriguing questions.
In addition to his major theme that doing science is a matter of thinking and not of credentials, he details discrimination due to his rejection of Darwin evolutionary theory in favor of the idea that our world was designed and created by an intelligent force.
This reminds us that scientific knowledge is an accumulation of successively more accurate measurements and theories and is not immutable truth set in stone. For instance in the last six decades the estimated age of our universe has steadily increased from about five billion years to about twenty billion.
In our present era when science is treated as a form of religion in which techno-priests dictate false beliefs, it is valuable to hear from someone who seeks truth in a traditional scientific manner, from which many credentialed scientists have wandered.
We are reminded that science was alive and well long before PhDs came on the scene as a form of accreditation. Although this seems to be a good idea, actual observation indicates that perhaps one in ten PhDs are capable of doing original research while the rest are content with regurgitating whatever is currently believed, often selling their reputations to "discover" and promote financially manipulated lies.
This book includes some enjoyable stories of adventures that accompany field work, usefulness of science fairs and controversies with lesser minds.
In all, it is a testament to a life of scientific thinking and action by a man who always seeks truth and has often found it.
His primary thesis embodies the essence of true science as opposed to accepting "scientific" dogma:
"If you are confident of your data but a scientist is not, believe your data not the scientist."
Displaying 1 of 1 review