I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity

ISBN: 0879695242

Author: Perutz, Max F.

Condition: New

In this collection of essays, Nobel Prize-winning protein chemist Max Perutz writes about the pursuit of scientific knowledge, which he sees as an enterprise providing not just a few facts but cause for reflection and revelation, as is a painting or poem. This work includes detective stories, tales of conflict and battle, a woman's love affair with crystals, a man's gruesome fascination with poison gas, Nobel Laureates' geriatric illusions about cancer cures, an onslaught on social relativists, the anticlimactic homecoming of a war hero that led to a Nobel prize, phantom perils that threaten us, and real perils that have been conquered by silent heroes. Perutz seeks to convince us that science is a passionate enterprise and the pursuit of knowledge a sortie into the unknown. He combines potraits of 20th-century giants such as Pauling, Meitner, Medawar, Krebs and others, with glimpses of his own his flight from Vienna in the '30s, internment in Britain as an enemy alien in World War II, rescue from the sea after a U-boat attack, and more. His observations on abortion issues, nuclear fuel reprocessing and human rights reflect a lifelong concern for social justice and scientific integrity.