Losing The Nobel Prize A Story Of Cosmology Ambition And The Perils Of Sciences Highest Honor

Download Losing The Nobel Prize A Story Of Cosmology Ambition And The Perils Of Sciences Highest Honor full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Losing The Nobel Prize A Story Of Cosmology Ambition And The Perils Of Sciences Highest Honor ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor

Author : Brian Keating
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324000929
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor by : Brian Keating

Download or read book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor written by Brian Keating and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.

Losing the Nobel Prize

Author : Brian Keating
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0393357392
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (933 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Losing the Nobel Prize by : Brian Keating

Download or read book Losing the Nobel Prize written by Brian Keating and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.

Spineless

Author : Juli Berwald
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735211280
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Spineless by : Juli Berwald

Download or read book Spineless written by Juli Berwald and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A book full of wonders" —Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk "Witty, insightful. . . .The story of jellyfish. . . is a significant part of the environmental story. Berwald's engaging account of these delicate, often ignored creatures shows how much they matter to our oceans' future." —New York Times Book Review Jellyfish have been swimming in our oceans for well over half a billion years, longer than any other animal that lives on the planet. They make a venom so toxic it can kill a human in three minutes. Their sting—microscopic spears that pierce with five million times the acceleration of gravity—is the fastest known motion in the animal kingdom. Made of roughly 95 percent water, some jellies are barely perceptible virtuosos of disguise, while others glow with a luminescence that has revolutionized biotechnology. Yet until recently, jellyfish were largely ignored by science, and they remain among the most poorly understood of ocean dwellers. More than a decade ago, Juli Berwald left a career in ocean science to raise a family in landlocked Austin, Texas, but jellyfish drew her back to the sea. Recent, massive blooms of billions of jellyfish have clogged power plants, decimated fisheries, and caused millions of dollars of damage. Driven by questions about how overfishing, coastal development, and climate change were contributing to a jellyfish population explosion, Juli embarked on a scientific odyssey. She traveled the globe to meet the biologists who devote their careers to jellies, hitched rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild, raised jellyfish in her dining room, and throughout it all marveled at the complexity of these alluring and ominous biological wonders. Gracefully blending personal memoir with crystal-clear distillations of science, Spineless is the story of how Juli learned to navigate and ultimately embrace her ambition, her curiosity, and her passion for the natural world. She discovers that jellyfish science is more than just a quest for answers. It’s a call to realize our collective responsibility for the planet we share.

Into The Impossible

Author : Brian Keating
Publisher : Manjul Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9355432178
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (554 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Into The Impossible by : Brian Keating

Download or read book Into The Impossible written by Brian Keating and published by Manjul Publishing. This book was released on with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can you unlock creativity and imagination to inspire, teach, and lead? What mental models do the world's most accomplished scientists use to supercharge their creativity and strengthen their most precious collaborations? In this mesmerizing collection of interviews with some of the world's brightest minds, you'll discover that achieving greatness doesn't require genius. Instead, dedication to a simple set of principles, habits, and tools can boost your creativity, stoke your imagination, and unlock your full potential for out-of-this-universe success. Through their own words, you will discover why Nobel Prize-winning scientists credit often-overlooked ‘soft skills’ like communication, motivation, and introspection as keys to their success. You'll see why they turn to curiosity, beauty, serendipity, and joy when they need a fresh view of some of the universe's most vexing problems... and how you can too, no matter what you do! Within the pages of ‘Into the Impossible: Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner’, the wisdom of nine Nobel Laureates has been distilled and compressed into concentrated, actionable data you can use. While each mind is unique, they are united in their emphasis that no one wins alone, and that science, and success itself, belongs to us all.

Night Sky Photography

Author : Adam Woodworth
Publisher : Ilex Press
ISBN 13 : 1781578370
Total Pages : 516 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (815 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Night Sky Photography by : Adam Woodworth

Download or read book Night Sky Photography written by Adam Woodworth and published by Ilex Press. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the night sky transforms terrestrial landscapes into otherworldly works of art, you need to know the professional techniques for capturing your own nocturnal masterpieces. This complete course combines the classic beauty of landscapes with the vast, exotic universe of astrophotography, using tried-and-tested methods that guarantee stellar results. You'll learn what gear you need and how to make the most of it; clever tricks for squeezing out every drop of image quality from a pitch-black scene; and straightforward post-production workflows to create compelling compositions of the cosmos.

Catching Stardust

Author : Natalie Starkey
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472944038
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (729 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Catching Stardust by : Natalie Starkey

Download or read book Catching Stardust written by Natalie Starkey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A promising debut.' New Scientist Icy, rocky, sometimes dusty, always mysterious – comets and asteroids are among the Solar System's very oldest inhabitants, formed within a swirling cloud of gas and dust in the area of space that eventually hosted the Sun and its planets. Locked within each of these extra-terrestrial objects is the 4.6-billion-year wisdom of Solar System events, and by studying them at close quarters using spacecraft we can coerce them into revealing their closely-guarded secrets. This offers us the chance to answer some fundamental questions about our planet and its inhabitants. Exploring comets and asteroids also allows us to shape the story of Earth's future, enabling us to protect our precious planet from the threat of a catastrophic impact from space, and maybe to even recover valuable raw materials from them. This cosmic bounty could be as useful in space as it is on Earth, providing the necessary fuel and supplies for humans as they voyage into deep space to explore more distant locations within the Solar System. Catching Stardust tells the story of these enigmatic celestial objects, revealing how scientists are using them to help understand a crucial time in our history – the birth of the Solar System, and everything contained within it.

Gene Machine

Author : Venki Ramakrishnan
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 046509337X
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Gene Machine by : Venki Ramakrishnan

Download or read book Gene Machine written by Venki Ramakrishnan and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Nobel Prize-winning biologist tells the riveting story of his race to discover the inner workings of biology's most important molecule "Ramakrishnan's writing is so honest, lucid and engaging that I could not put this book down until I had read to the very end." -- Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome -- an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms -- that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. Gene Machine is an insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that both advances our knowledge of all life and could lead to the development of better antibiotics against life-threatening diseases. But this is also a human story of Ramakrishnan's unlikely journey, from his first fumbling experiments in a biology lab to being the dark horse in a fierce competition with some of the world's best scientists. In the end, Gene Machine is a frank insider's account of the pursuit of high-stakes science.

The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize

Author : Peter Doherty
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231138970
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize by : Peter Doherty

Download or read book The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize written by Peter Doherty and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize, Doherty recounts his unlikely path to becoming a Nobel Laureate. Beginning with his humble origins in Australia, he tells how he developed an interest in immunology and describes his award-winning, influential work with Rolf Zinkernagel on T-cells and the nature of immune defense. In prose that is at turns amusing and astute, Doherty reveals how his nonconformist upbringing, sense of being an outsider, and search for different perspectives have shaped his life and work. Doherty offers a rare, insider's look at the realities of being a research scientist. He lucidly explains his own scientific work and how research projects are selected, funded, and organized; the major problems science is trying to solve; and the rewards and pitfalls of a career in scientific research. For Doherty, science still plays an important role in improving the world, and he argues that scientists need to do a better job of making their work more accessible to the public. Throughout the book, Doherty explores the stories of past Nobel winners and considers some of the crucial scientific debates of our time, including the safety of genetically modified foods and the tensions between science and religion. He concludes with some "tips" on how to win a Nobel Prize, including advice on being persistent, generous, and culturally aware, and he stresses the value of evidence. The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Noble Prize is essential reading for anyone interested in a career in science.

The Second Kind of Impossible

Author : Paul Steinhardt
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 : 147672993X
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Second Kind of Impossible by : Paul Steinhardt

Download or read book The Second Kind of Impossible written by Paul Steinhardt and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize* One of the most fascinating scientific detective stories of the last fifty years, an exciting quest for a new form of matter. “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure. When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter—one that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).

Conjuring the Universe

Author : Peter William Atkins
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198813376
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Conjuring the Universe by : Peter William Atkins

Download or read book Conjuring the Universe written by Peter William Atkins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The marvellous complexity of the Universe emerges from several deep laws and a handful of fundamental constants that fix its shape, scale, and destiny. There is a deep structure to the world which at the same time is simple, elegant, and beautiful. Where did these laws and these constants come from? And why are the laws so fruitful when written in the language of mathematics? Peter Atkins considers the minimum effort needed to equip the Universe with its laws and its constants. He explores the origin of the conservation of energy, of electromagnetism, of classical and quantum mechanics, and of thermodynamics, showing how all these laws spring from deep symmetries. The revolutionary result is a short but immensely rich weaving together of the fundamental ideas of physics. With his characteristic wit, erudition, and economy, Atkins sketches out how the laws of Nature can spring from very little. Or arguably from nothing at all.

Science and Anti-science

Author : Gerald James Holton
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674792982
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (929 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Science and Anti-science by : Gerald James Holton

Download or read book Science and Anti-science written by Gerald James Holton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is good science? What goal--if any--is the proper end of scientific activity? Is there a legitimating authority that scientists mayclaim? Howserious athreat are the anti-science movements? These questions have long been debated but, as Gerald Holton points out, every era must offer its own responses. This book examines these questions not in the abstract but shows their historic roots and the answers emerging from the scientific and political controversies of this century. Employing the case-study method and the concept of scientific thematathat he has pioneered, Holton displays the broad scope of his insight into the workings of science: from the influence of Ernst Mach on twentiethcentury physicists, biologists, psychologists, and other thinkers to the rhetorical strategies used in the work of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others; from the bickering between Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Congress over the proper form of federal sponsorship of scientific research to philosophical debates since Oswald Spengier over whether our scientific knowledge will ever be "complete." In a masterful final chapter, Holton scrutinizes the "anti-science phenomenon," the increasingly common opposition to science as practiced today. He approaches this contentious issue by examining the world views and political ambitions of the proponents of science as well as those of its opponents-the critics of "establishment science" (including even those who fear that science threatens to overwhelm the individual in the postmodern world) and the adherents of "alternative science" (Creationists, New Age "healers," astrologers). Through it all runs the thread of the author's deep historical knowledge and his humanistic understanding of science in modern culture. Science and Anti-Science will be of great interest not only to scientists and scholars in the field of science studies but also to educators, policymalcers, and all those who wish to gain a fuller understanding of challenges to and doubts about the role of science in our lives today.

Finding Our Place in the Universe

Author : Helene Courtois
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262353393
Total Pages : 181 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Finding Our Place in the Universe by : Helene Courtois

Download or read book Finding Our Place in the Universe written by Helene Courtois and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a team of researchers, led by the author, discovered our home galaxy's location in the universe. You are here: on Earth, which is part of the solar system, which is in the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is within the extragalactic supercluster Laniakea. And how can we pinpoint our location so precisely? For twenty years, astrophysicist Hélène Courtois surfed the cosmos with international teams of researchers, working to map our local universe. In this book, Courtois describes this quest and the discovery of our home supercluster. Courtois explains that Laniakea (which means “immense heaven” in Hawaiian) is the largest galaxy structure known to which we belong; it is huge, almost too large to comprehend—about five hundred million light-years in diameter. It contains about 100,000 large galaxies like our own, and a million smaller ones. Writing accessibly for nonspecialists, Courtois describes the visualization and analysis that allowed her team to map such large structures of the universe. She highlights the work of individual researchers, including portraits of several exceptional women astrophysicists—presenting another side of astronomy. Key ideas are highlighted in text insets; illustrations accompany the main text. The French edition of this book was named the Best Astronomy Book of 2017 by the astronomy magazine Ciel et espace. For this MIT Press English-language edition, Courtois has added descriptions of discoveries made after Laniakea: the cosmic velocity web and the Dipole and Cold Spot repellers. An engaging account of one of the most important discoveries in astrophysics in recent years, her story is a tribute to teamwork and international collaboration.

The Nobel Prize

Author : Burton Feldman
Publisher : Arcade Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781559705929
Total Pages : 520 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (59 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Nobel Prize by : Burton Feldman

Download or read book The Nobel Prize written by Burton Feldman and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the Nobel Institution in detail, telling about the award and its beginnings, what it means to win a Nobel Prize, the fields in which it is presented, who judges and how the prize is awarded, and more.

The Cosmic Cocktail

Author : Katherine Freese
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691169187
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Cosmic Cocktail by : Katherine Freese

Download or read book The Cosmic Cocktail written by Katherine Freese and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of the epic quest to solve the mystery of dark matter The ordinary atoms that make up the known universe—from our bodies and the air we breathe to the planets and stars—constitute only 5 percent of all matter and energy in the cosmos. The rest is known as dark matter and dark energy, because their precise identities are unknown. The Cosmic Cocktail is the inside story of the epic quest to solve one of the most compelling enigmas of modern science—what is the universe made of?—told by one of today's foremost pioneers in the study of dark matter. Blending cutting-edge science with her own behind-the-scenes insights as a leading researcher in the field, acclaimed theoretical physicist Katherine Freese recounts the hunt for dark matter, from the discoveries of visionary scientists like Fritz Zwicky—the Swiss astronomer who coined the term "dark matter" in 1933—to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists contend that dark matter consists of fundamental particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second without us even realizing it, yet their gravitational pull is capable of whirling stars and gas at breakneck speeds around the centers of galaxies, and bending light from distant bright objects. Freese describes the larger-than-life characters and clashing personalities behind the race to identify these elusive particles. Many cosmologists believe we are on the verge of solving the mystery. The Cosmic Cocktail provides the foundation needed to fully fathom this epochal moment in humankind’s quest to understand the universe.

The Disappearing Spoon

Author : Sam Kean
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 9780316089081
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (89 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Disappearing Spoon by : Sam Kean

Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?* The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery--from the Big Bang through the end of time. *Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

At the Edge of Time

Author : Dan Hooper
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691197008
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis At the Edge of Time by : Dan Hooper

Download or read book At the Edge of Time written by Dan Hooper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new look at the first few seconds after the Big Bang—and how research into these moments continues to revolutionize our understanding of our universe Scientists in the past few decades have made crucial discoveries about how our cosmos evolved over the past 13.8 billion years. But there remains a critical gap in our knowledge: we still know very little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. At the Edge of Time focuses on what we have recently learned and are still striving to understand about this most essential and mysterious period of time at the beginning of cosmic history. Delving into the remarkable science of cosmology, Dan Hooper describes many of the extraordinary and perplexing questions that scientists are asking about the origin and nature of our world. Hooper examines how we are using the Large Hadron Collider and other experiments to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang and test promising theories for how and why our universe came to contain so much matter and so little antimatter. We may be poised to finally discover how dark matter was formed during our universe’s first moments, and, with new telescopes, we are also lifting the veil on the era of cosmic inflation, which led to the creation of our world as we know it. Wrestling with the mysteries surrounding the initial moments that followed the Big Bang, At the Edge of Time presents an accessible investigation of our universe and its origin.

Wings of Fire

Author : Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam
Publisher : Universities Press
ISBN 13 : 9788173711466
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (114 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Wings of Fire by : Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam

Download or read book Wings of Fire written by Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam and published by Universities Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, The Son Of A Little-Educated Boat-Owner In Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Had An Unparalled Career As A Defence Scientist, Culminating In The Highest Civilian Award Of India, The Bharat Ratna. As Chief Of The Country`S Defence Research And Development Programme, Kalam Demonstrated The Great Potential For Dynamism And Innovation That Existed In Seemingly Moribund Research Establishments. This Is The Story Of Kalam`S Rise From Obscurity And His Personal And Professional Struggles, As Well As The Story Of Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul And Nag--Missiles That Have Become Household Names In India And That Have Raised The Nation To The Level Of A Missile Power Of International Reckoning.