A NASA astrophysicist narrates his improbable journey from an impoverished childhood and an adolescence mired in drugs and crime to the nation's top physics PhD program at Stanford in this inspiring coming-of-age memoir.
Born into extreme poverty and emotional deprivation, James Edward Plummer was blessed with a genius I.Q. and a love of science. But in his community, a young bookworm quickly becomes a target for violence and abuse. As he struggles to survive his childhood in some of the toughest cities in the country, and his teenage years in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, James adopts the hybrid persona of a 'gangsta nerd'--dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that untangle the mysteries of Einstein's relativity theory.
When his prodigious intellect gains him admission to the elite Physics PhD program at Stanford University, James finds himself torn between his love of science and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor Art Walker, the lone Black faculty member in the physics department, James finally seizes his dream of a life in science and becomes his true adult self, changing his name to Hakeem Muata Oluseyi in honor--and celebration--of his African heritage.
In the tradition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Other Wes Moore, A Quantum Life is an uplifting journey to the stars fueled by hope, hustle, and a hungry mind. As he charts his development as a young scientist, Oluseyi also plumbs the mysteries of the universe where potential personal outcomes are as infinite as the stars in the sky.
War of the Whales tells the unlikely story of a maverick marine scientist who discovered one of the U.S. Navy's best-kept secrets: a submarine surveillance system originally designed to mimic marine mammal bio-sonar that became, ironically, an acoustic assault on an endangered species. When dozens of whales mysteriously began stranding on the shore of the small Caribbean island where Balcomb had studied marine life for years, the lone scientist challenged federal authorities with his assertion that the strandings were caused by sonar from U.S. Navy submarines.
In response to the unexplained deaths of dozens of whales, one of the nation's most respected (and feared) environmental lawyers, Joel Reynolds, took action to hold the Navy accountable in a court of law. Working with Balcomb and his team from the National Resources Defense Council, the activists mounted a long battle on behalf of marine mammals against the world's most powerful Navy, which disputed the charges and held firm in its belief that its sonar submarine exercises were vital to America's national security. The battle went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Author Joshua Horwitz weaves into War of the Whales the hidden history of the Cold War competition that spurred the development of the submarine and of sonar technology. His book is written with all the ingredients of great narrative nonfiction: heroic idealists, scientific mystery, legal drama, natural history, and military intrigue.
