"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Astronomer, planetary scientist, astrophysicist, exobiologist, educator, public figure, skeptic--all these hats represent important parts of Carl Sagan's complex, multifaceted career. Perhaps best known as the host of the popular television series Cosmos, Sagan offered to the world his extraordinary gift for cross-disciplinary research, his deep well of integrated visions and fruitful ideas, his vivid imagination, and his wealth of nonstop enthusiasm.
This concise, lively biography examines Carl Sagan's steady growth as a man, as a scientist, and as a communicator--a man who had both odd quirks and great charisma, who had an immensely eclectic knowledge base and a unique understanding of the central place of science in the human experience, all of which dovetailed smoothly with his phenomenal ability to communicate.
Separate chapters are devoted to Sagan's interest in the origin of life, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and his work on Cosmos, where he collaborated with Ann Druyan, whom he eventually married and who remained his wife to the end of his life. There are also sections on Sagan's public advocacy for science and critical stance toward pseudoscience and his role as an activist for the environment and the safe use of atomic power.
This updated, paperback edition of Carl Sagan: A Biography contains many new photos as well as textual additions by Ann Druyan. Veteran science writers Spangenburg and Moser have captured much of the enthusiasm, gift for effective communication, and unflinching honesty that characterized Carl Sagan's life and career.

She was everything everyone else wanted her to be. Until she followed her own path. Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas-both professional and personal-that left her anxious yet determined to escape. It would take a catastrophic event for Helena to abandon her career at the age of forty, recover her Korean identity, and set in motion a journey of self-discovery. In her powerful and moving memoir, Helena Rho reveals the courage it took to break away from the path that was laid out for her, to assert her presence, and to discover the freedom and joy of finally being herself.

En Nuestra Medicina: De Los Remedios para el Aire y Los Remedios para el Alma, la autora presenta una compilacion de experiencias propias que tienen que ver con el cuidado y alcance de su propia salud y, mas tarde, de la de otros. Las experiencias narradas son vividas directamente por la autora quien descubre, interpreta y describe en detalle lo que el ser humano guarda en su cuerpo y en su alma. A partir de la observacion aguda, que hace la autora de algunos eventos concretos que se presentan a lo largo de su vida, sanandose a si misma y a otros, es, que nos explica, como, en un encuentro inesperado entre ella y otros que encuentra en su camino, se da la pauta a un interesante dialogo. En este dialogo, la comunicacion va mas alla de las palabras, expresando un profundo sentir y forma de ver el mundo concreto en que se desenvuelven muchos mexicanos, portadores del conocimiento sobre la Medicina Indigena. Es, a partir de esa comunicacion que, muchos mexicanos herederos de una vasta y diversa cultura antigua nos ofrecen una profunda vision del mundo, y con ello el planteamiento de la resolucion del conflicto eterno que existe entre la salud y la enfermedad. Pareciera que la vida fuese una constante batalla, donde lo concreto; las particulas, los atomos, las celulas que forman parte del cuerpo humano y, lo no concreto; los sentimientos, los pensamientos, lo etereo del Ser, se entrelazan y se desenlazan hasta lograr la sincronizacion, la alineacion al camino que, permitira a los individuos cumplir con su destino. Con ello se permiten los seres de esta Tierra, completar al fin los ciclos, empezar otra vez, abriendo posibilidades nuevas de armonia, amor, paz. A lo largo de este documento, la autora nos ofrece en concreto una interpretacion seria y profunda de los conceptos tradicionales -incluyendo su interpretacion filosofica, sobre los padecimientos que aquejan a los seres humanos, la cual forma parte de la cosmovision de los mexicanos herederos de esta cultura. Sobre todo, y principalmente, enfatiza en observar aquellas causas que dan origen a las enfermedades -consideradas por los indigenas mexicanos, que tienen que ver con la perdida del alma, la conciencia y la salud -hoy mal o bien llamada mental. Presenta asi, las diferentes formas de sanacion que utilizan muchos mexicanos, los cuales hoy carecen de la seriedad e intensidad que se merecen, lo que hace que los problemas de la salud sean cada vez mas dificil de resolver, esa es la principal razon de este libro. Donde la autora plantea retomar esas formas, sin desdenar las tecnicas modernas. Ella solo se enfoca a ofrecer las inmensas posibilidades que los terapeutas de hoy, sean alternativos o tradicionales pudieran utilizar para sanar a su gente.

'Kate Winkler Dawson is an unbelievable crime historian and such a talented storyteller.' Karen Kilgariff, cohost of the My Favorite Murder podcast 'Heinrich changed criminal investigations forever, and anyone fascinated by the myriad detective series and TV shows about forensics will want to read [this].' The Washington Post 'An entertaining, absorbing combination of biography and true crime.' Kirkus 'Kate Winkler Dawson has researched both her subject and his cases so meticulously that her reconstructions and descriptions made me feel part of the action rather than just a reader and bystander. She has brought to life Edward Oscar Heinrich's character, determination, and skill so vividly that one is left bemused that this man is so little known to most of us.' Patricia Wiltshire, author of Traces and The Nature of Life and Death Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities - beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners and hundreds of books - sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least 2,000 cases in his 40-year career. Known as the 'American Sherlock Holmes', Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of the greatest - and first - forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural. Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock is a true-crime account capturing the life of the man who spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools, including blood-spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence.

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp and the remote control. His breakthrough came in alternating current, which pitted him against Thomas Edison's direct current empire and bitter patent battles ensued. But Tesla's technology was superior and he prevailed. He had no business sense, could not capitalise on this success and his most advanced ideas were unrecognised for decades. Tesla's personal life was magnificently bizarre. Strikingly handsome, he was germophobic and never shook hands. He required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. In later years he ate only white food and conversed with the pigeons in Bryant Park. This authoritative and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of this remarkable life.

All in Good Time is the remarkable story of George Daniels (1926-2011), the master craftsman, who was born into poverty but raised himself to become the greatest watchmaker of the twentieth century. Daniels stands alone in modern times as the inventor of the revolutionary co-axial escapement, the first substantial advance in portable mechanical timekeeping over the lever escapement, which has dominated ever since its invention in 1759. Daniels's love of mechanics embraced not only the minute, however - he was also a passionate collector and driver of historic motorcars. This revised and expanded edition of his autobiography also contains a new section that illustrates and discusses over thirty of the pocket and wrist-watches Daniels himself made over the years. Witness here the triumph of intelligence, ingenuity, matchless skill and singularity of purpose over the most unpromising of beginnings.

'A profound meditation on a problem many of us will face; worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Atul Gawande's Being Mortal' Kirkus As the American born daughter of immigrants, Dr. Sunita Puri knew from a young age that the gulf between her parents' experiences and her own was impossible to bridge, save for two elements: medicine and spirituality. Between days spent waiting for her mother, an anesthesiologist, to exit the OR, and evenings spent in conversation with her parents about their faith, Puri witnessed the tension between medicine's impulse to preserve life at all costs and a spiritual embrace of life's temporality. And it was that tension that eventually drew Puri, a passionate but unsatisfied medical student, to palliative medicine - a new specialty attempting to translate the border between medical intervention and quality-of-life care. Interweaving evocative stories of Puri's family and the patients she cares for, That Good Night is a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming readers with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us.

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves' The Economist #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel returns with a captivating, little-known true story of women in science Before they even had the right to vote, a group of remarkable women were employed by Harvard College Observatory as 'Human Computers' to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night. The author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter and The Planets shines light on the hidden history of these extraordinary women who changed the burgeoning field of astronomy and our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.

This is the story of a life spent largely in the world of chemistry, mainly as a college or university-level teacher. It is also the story of an ordinary boy, a child of the war years, who rose from an unpromising start, leaving school at 16 with four mediocre O Levels, to become more successful and fulfilled in a career than he had ever imagined possible, eventually becoming a university professor. The book also describes the immense contribution made to our lives by chemical research and the chemical industry.

Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that "can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist" (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets-and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman's life shines through in all its eccentric glory-a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.

Champion pigeon racer, lover of wild creatures and wild places, MENSA member, philosopher -in retirement Jim Emerton now devotes his time and energies to sharing his experiences, his observations and his expertise with others who share his interests and concerns. This is a collection of Jim's more philosophical writings as originally published in MENSA publications, including the members' periodical Cognito. They are in general his attempts, as he puts it, to 'verbalise the unknowable'. "I have had a great life...I have travelled a lot, run a business, been a salesman, I was a record-breaking shot and until I was 30 I had never been beaten at arm wrestling. Over the years I have developed my own personal belief system fusing science and art in philosophy."

In this revelatory and moving memoir, a former NASA astronaut and NFL wide receiver shares his personal journey from the gridiron to the stars, examining the intersecting roles of community, perseverance and grace that align to create the opportunities for success.Leland Melvin is the only person in human history to catch a pass in the National Football League and in space. Though his path to the heavens was riddled with setbacks and injury, Leland persevered to reach the stars. While training with NASA, Melvin suffered a severe injury that left him deaf. Leland was relegated to earthbound assignments, but chose to remain and support his astronaut family. His loyalty paid off. Recovering partial hearing, he earned his eligibility for space travel. He served as mission specialist for two flights aboard the shuttle Atlantis, working on the International Space Station.In this uplifting memoir, the former NASA astronaut and professional athlete offers an examination of the intersecting role of community, determination, and grace that align to shape our opportunities and outcomes. Chasing Space is not the story of one man, but the story of many men, women, scientists, and mentors who helped him defy the odds and live out an uncommon destiny.As a chemist, athlete, engineer and space traveler, Leland's life story is a study in the science of achievement. His personal insights illuminate how grit and grace, are the keys to overcoming adversity and rising to success.

A book that enlightens the life of Ahmed H Zewail from his early childhood to his days at CalTech.Born in Damanhur, Egypt, Ahmed H Zewail grew up with his family, studied at a local primary school and eventually graduated from Alexandria University. After completing his schooling, he went on to teach chemistry to undergraduates at the University of Alexandria.His contributions are not only to science but also to society. As a pioneer scientist, he returned to Egypt and had his fingerprints on all the initiatives to encourage scientific research and to upgrade the scientific and technological capabilities of his countrymen. He founded the Zewail City for Science and Technology - a non-profit educational institution for research and innovation in Cairo.A Nobel Prize winner, inventor of the ground-breaking four dimensional microscopy, and together with his other accolades, Ahmed H Zewail is one of the greatest scientists this century has produced. His foresight for the development of both the scientific and cultural fields in Egypt has made him a brilliant jewel for Egypt and the world.

Winner of the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction The story of the scientist who first mapped Minnesota's geology, set against the backdrop of early scientific inquiry in the state At twenty, Newton Horace Winchell declared, "I know nothing about rocks." At twenty-five, he decided to make them his life's work. As a young geologist tasked with heading the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, Winchell (1839-1914) charted the prehistory of the region, its era of inland seas, its volcanic activity, and its several ice ages-laying the foundation for the monumental five-volume Geology of Minnesota. Tracing Winchell's remarkable path from impoverished fifteen-year-old schoolteacher to a leading light of an emerging scientific field, Minnesota's Geologist also recreates the heady early days of scientific inquiry in Minnesota, a time when one man's determination and passion for learning could unlock the secrets of the state's distant past and present landscape. Traveling by horse and cart, by sailboat and birchbark canoe, Winchell and his group surveyed rock outcrops, river valleys, basalt formations on Lake Superior, and the vast Red River Valley. He studied petrology at the Sorbonne in Paris, bringing cutting-edge knowledge to bear on the volcanic rocks of the Arrowhead region. As a founder of the American Geological Society and founding editor of American Geologist, the first journal for professional geologists, Winchell was the driving force behind scientific endeavor in early state history, serving as mentor to many young scientists and presiding over a household-the Winchell House, located on the University of Minnesota's present-day mall-that was a nexus of intellectual ferment. His life story, told here for the first time, draws an intimate picture of this influential scientist, set against a backdrop of Minnesota's geological complexity and splendor.

This pioneering book investigates how biographical evidence has been variously used, misused, or not used at all, by clinicians entirely reliant on biographical evidence for the influential posthumous diagnoses they have produced of Winston Churchill as a manic-depressive. Attention is paid, also, to the distinct question of Churchill and "nerves," otherwise known as neurasthenia. This question has a place alongside the manic-depression issue because, by ensuring there is a marked contrast between two lines of biographical inquiry, it facilitates a significant move in the direction of a more rounded, a more securely founded, understanding of how Churchill functioned psychologically, and how he did not. That goal of a more rounded understanding is important, and the contribution Diagnosing Churchill makes towards its achievement is worthwhile, because accuracy in the depiction of key elements in the functioning of a major historical figure, one of the heroes of Western democratic civilization, is enjoined by a principle Churchill expressed thus: "the meanest historian owes something to the truth."

On December 10, 2007, just three months shy of her thirtieth birthday, Tyesha Love received a phone call that would change her life forever. After being told she had stage 2 breast cancer, Tyesha's world stopped, the walls closed in, and she fell to the floor sobbing. This is the story of her compelling journey through breast cancer from diagnosis to treatment to triumph. As a single parent, full-time student, and full-time employee, Tyesha, a self-confessed control freak, already had her entire year planned out when she received her diagnosis. No stranger to confronting daily challenges, Tyesha relays how she placed her worries and fears in God's hands and then courageously confronted the tests, surgeries, treatments, and recovery. While sharing the poignant moments like when her one-year-old nephew blew a kiss at her cancer-ridden breast, Tyesha also provides a self-disclosing glimpse into what it is like to fear the unknown, feel the physical pain after a mastectomy, and face herself in the mirror after she loses her hair. Tyesha's moving story is intended to be a testimony for those battling breast cancer with the hope that her journey will become the inspiration to persevere and prevail while believing in faith, hope, and life.

In this intriguing, insightful and extremely educational novel, the world's most famous hacker teaches you easy cloaking and counter-measures for citizens and consumers in the age of Big Brother and Big Data (Frank W. Abagnale). Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies -- and no matter how fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. As the FBI's net finally began to tighten, Mitnick went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated game of hide-and-seek that escalated through false identities, a host of cities, and plenty of close shaves, to an ultimate showdown with the Feds, who would stop at nothing to bring him down. Ghost in the Wires is a thrilling true story of intrigue, suspense, and unbelievable escapes -- and a portrait of a visionary who forced the authorities to rethink the way they pursued him, and forced companies to rethink the way they protect their most sensitive information. Mitnick manages to make breaking computer code sound as action-packed as robbing a bank. -- NPR

A prismatic look at the meeting of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein and the impact these two pillars of science had on the world of physics, which was in turmoil.

In 1911, some of the greatest minds in science convened at the First Solvay Conference in Physics. Almost half of the attendees had won or would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Over the course of those few days, these minds began to realise that classical physics was about to give way to quantum theory, a seismic shift in our history and how we understand not just our world, but the universe.

At the centre of this meeting were Marie Curie and a young Albert Einstein. In the years preceding, Curie had faced the death of her husband. She was on the cusp of being awarded her second Nobel Prize, but scandal erupted all around her when the French press revealed that she was having an affair with a fellow scientist, Paul Langevin.

The subject of vicious misogynist and xenophobic attacks in the French press, Curie found herself in a storm that threatened her scientific legacy.

Albert Einstein proved a supporter in her travails. He was young and already showing flourishes of his enormous genius. Curie had been responsible for one of the greatest discoveries in modern science. Utilising never before seen correspondence and notes, Jeffrey Orens reveals the human side of these brilliant scientists, one who pushed boundaries and demanded equality in a man’s world, no matter the cost, and the other, who was destined to become synonymous with genius.

This biography of the mathematician, Sophie Germain, paints a rich portrait of a brilliant and complex woman, the mathematics she developed, her associations with Gauss, Legendre, and other leading researchers, and the tumultuous times in which she lived. Sophie Germain stood right between Gauss and Legendre, and both publicly recognized her scientific efforts. Unlike her female predecessors and contemporaries, Sophie Germain was an impressive mathematician and made lasting contributions to both number theory and the theories of plate vibrations and elasticity. She was able to walk with ease across the bridge between the fields of pure mathematics and engineering physics. Though isolated and snubbed by her peers, Sophie Germain was the first woman to win the prize of mathematics from the French Academy of Sciences. She is the only woman who contributed to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. In this unique biography, Dora Musielak has done the impossible she has chronicled Sophie Germain's brilliance through her life and work in mathematics, in a way that is simultaneously informative, comprehensive, and accurate.

Based on a National Magazine Award-winning article, this masterful biography of Hungarian-born Paul Erdos is both a vivid portrait of an eccentric genius and a layman's guide to some of this century's most startling mathematical discoveries. A man who possessed unimaginable powers of thought yet was unable to perform the simplest daily tasks, Erdos dedicated his life to the pursuit of mathematical truth. Here, award-winning science writer Paul Hoffman follows the career and achievements of this philosopher-scientist whose way of life was as inconceivable as the theorems he devised, yet whose accomplishments continue to enrich and inform the world.