In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to ascend through the top ranks of research physics.Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars-a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in his community, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country's toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of "gangsta nerd"-dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein's theory of relativity. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors.Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A QUANTUM LIFE narrates one man's remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.
CONTRIBUTORS: Hakeem Oluseyi, Joshua HorwitzEAN: 9780349430355COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 480 gHEIGHT: 232 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Little, Brown Book GroupDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Science & Technology, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal MemoirsWIDTH: 152 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Relating to African American / Black American people, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine, Memoirs, Astrophysics
An epic personal and scientific journey through a system stacked against him. Haunting and heroic, Hakeem Oluseyi's journey to adulthood is not only lyrical but immensely expansive and powerful. Moving across the American west and south, A Quantum Life encompasses with equal grace matters of particle physics and matters of a fractured family, challenges that are self-wrought and challenges inflicted by racism, triumphs over an academic landscape engineered against poor African-Americans and triumphs of the human heart, A physicist works with the statistical nature of the cosmos to predict the future - possible outcomes and unlikely ones. In A Quantum Life, you'll encounter one extraordinary turn of events after another, as the extraordinary chess player, puzzle solver, and occasional grifter, works his way from grinding poverty and deep despair to worldwide acclaim as a physicist. As you turn each page, you may not believe this outcome was possible. Read on, A Black astrophysicist delivers a memoir that demonstrates the unstoppable strength of intelligence and the human spirit ... A sharp, relatable book about self-reinvention and a loving nod to anyone who has ever believed in the potential of another, This illuminating and candid memoir ... is a testament to human fortitude ... Fans of Neil deGrasse Tyson will embrace this invigorating account of a life devoted to science
Hakeem Oluseyi is an astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, television personality, and public speaker. Since 2007, he has been a professor of physics and space sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, and has served at Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.Hakeem has hosted television shows including Outrageous Acts of Science, How the Universe Works, and Strip the Cosmos, which all appear on Discovery's Science Channel, where he has also been its Chief Science Officer. Oluseyi has been profiled by The Undefeated and the TED Blog.Joshua Horwitz is the author of the New York Times bestseller War of the Whales: A True Story, which won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
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In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to ascend through the top ranks of research physics.Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars-a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in his community, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country's toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of "gangsta nerd"-dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein's theory of relativity. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors.Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A QUANTUM LIFE narrates one man's remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.
CONTRIBUTORS: Hakeem Oluseyi, Joshua HorwitzEAN: 9780349430355COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 480 gHEIGHT: 232 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Little, Brown Book GroupDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Science & Technology, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal MemoirsWIDTH: 152 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Relating to African American / Black American people, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine, Memoirs, Astrophysics
Hakeem Oluseyi is an astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, television personality, and public speaker. Since 2007, he has been a professor of physics and space sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, and has served at Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.Hakeem has hosted television shows including Outrageous Acts of Science, How the Universe Works, and Strip the Cosmos, which all appear on Discovery's Science Channel, where he has also been its Chief Science Officer. Oluseyi has been profiled by The Undefeated and the TED Blog.Joshua Horwitz is the author of the New York Times bestseller War of the Whales: A True Story, which won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
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Naval's insights in this book are simple yet powerful.
This book is like a guide to living well. It’s easy to read, but the ideas are deep and make you see things in a new light. Definitely a book you should keep in your bookshelf!
Kruhan Malherbe is ’n tipiese twaalfjarige wat saam met sy ouers in met ’n ou Pajero en ’n karavaan van plek tot plek deur Suid-Afrika reis en vir tye staan in karavaanparke. Die storielyn is heel kontemporêr in terme van sy ouers se beroepe wat hulle aanlyn kan beoefen en Kruhan wat ’n internasionale skoolsyllabus volg. En ook tipies van ’n knaap van sy ouderdom, volg hy nie altyd opdragte en waarskuwings nie, en is hy soms krities, teleurgesteld en verveeld met sy ouers.
Die storie skop af wanneer die gesin by Kebospark kamp opslaan, ’n vervalle karavaanpark waar vreemde karakters woon. Gou blyk dit dat die rietbos, die strandmeer en die nagapies buitengewoon is. Die skrywer verweef die magiese, die mitiese en spanningselemente vernuftig om met ’n boeiende storielyn vorendag te kom. Ek is baie ouer as die aanbevole lesers van 12 jaar en ouer, maar ek het sommer baie gretig gelees aan hierdie jeugverhaal.
In kinder- en jeugverhale soek ek altyd na brokkies lewenswysheid wat aan die lesers oorgedra kan word deur middel van ’n storie. Geheim in die riete slaag puik daarin. Wat is meer heilsaam as ‘n seun wat dapper verantwoordelikheid aanvaar vir ander se veiligheid, wat misleiding raaksien en na waarde beoordeel, en besef hoe belangrik sy ouers in werklikheid vir hom is.
Constant van Graan het bekendheid verwerf vir sy Jungu Josh reeks en aanhangers behoort hierdie nuwe boek ook te geniet.
“Enigeen kan ’n moordenaar wees. Al wat dit vat, is ’n goeie rede, en ’n slegte dag.” (p. 25) Sommer vroeg-vroeg moes ek heelhartig saamstem met hierdie sentiment van adjudant-offisier Lisamore Talakase. Ek het om die beurt ’n hele paar van die uitgebreide aanbieding van karakters oorweeg as die moordenaar, selfs die moontlikheid ondersteun dat daar inderdaad meer as een moordadige sluiper los is in Hermanus. Die tienermoorde en die ander moorde hou duidelik nie verband nie.
Koloner Bekeer se taakspan, bestaande uit Talakase, Werner de Wege en die vermaaklike Johnny Delport, maak nie hond haaraf van die twee reekse moorde nie. Die hulp van kaptein Stephan Schutte word ook ingeroep. Laasgenoemde se IT-vernuf sorg weliswaar vir ’n paar deurbrake. Die tienermoordenaar word redelik vroeg ontmasker, maar die storielyn verloor nie momentum nie. Die ander moorde sorg dat die spanningslyn geensins verslap nie.
Wegkruiper is die tipiese boek wat mens heeltemal te vinnig lees omdat jy agter die kap van die byl wil kom. Die skrywer het geduldig omgegaan met die detail van destydse gebeure wat die karakters verbind asook met die moordenaar se makabere motivering is die wreedaardige slagtings.
Christelle Wessels se vorige boeke, Adder en Brandmerk, het ek nie gelees nie, maar ek is seker dat Wegkruiper ’n stewige posisie gaan inneem onder spanningsromans. Dit is net-net aanvaarbaar vir hierdie ietwat sensitiewe leser!
Wegkruiper is uitgegee deur Penguinbooks SA
A Crown of Chains was my introduction into the literary world of Closed Door Romance books. I loved every minute of it. The characters were well written, the story made my pulse race and the main character was so strong. Loved it!