More than Curious - A Science Memoir

by William H. Press

Random events put Bill Press in places and times to closely observe significant events and noteworthy personalities in 20th century science. Variously, he interacted with such notables as Richard Feynman, S. Chandrasekhar, Edward Teller, Ya. B. Zel'dovich, John Wheeler, James Watson, Julian Schwinger, Fred Hoyle, Martin Rees, Stephen Hawking, Freeman Dyson, Ed Witten, and many others. His Ph.D. advisor, Kip Thorne, and his Ph.D. student, Adam Riess, each won Nobel Prizes-for discoveries that he helped them start. Later, Press worked with (or for) not just scientists, but also technology capitalists and billionaires, admirals and generals, and political leaders including two U.S. presidents. His memoir is rich in stories about these people and events.

837 pages, Kindle Edition

Reviews

[Joheen Chakraborty · Rating 3 out of 5]

For about the first half of the book, the author describes his growing into a prominent physicist, and I couldn't put the book down. About halfway through, he pivots to a career of mostly becoming a senior administrator/government advisor/lab director/bureaucrat, with research progressing towards entirely taking the backseat. This was a bit of a painful slog through a dense jungle of acronyms and administrative politics that was hard to care about. I couldn't help but find it a bit ominous, reading it partly as a warning about what's probably a fairly standard academic science career trajectory.