Reinventing the Future: Conversations with the World's Leading Scientists - Tapa blanda

The scientists in this collection of interviews are explorers. They have changed the rules of the game - altered our perception of reality and the language used to describe it. "There are two kinds of scientists, " says Luc Montagnier, interviewed in this volume, "the explorers who set out to discover new territories - either an island or an entire continent - and those who occupy these territories and build structures on them." This book is full of newly discovered continents. In eleven lively interviews, Thomas Bass's Reinventing the Future takes us on a tour through a breathtaking array of ideas. It opens vistas into molecular and cell biology, genetics, chaos theory, new drug research, and other disciplines in the process of shaping - reinventing - the future. The interview format is a marvelous way to learn about scientific research. It puts the passion back into ideas. It highlights the questions and doubts that often precede great discoveries. Thomas Bass's success in emboldening these scientists to discuss their lives and work makes for dramatic reading. As Norman Packard, another interviewee explains it, "Information equals surprise, and the more information you have, the more surprised you are." This is a book full of surprises.

Thomas A. Bass, who holds advanced degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of California at Santa Cruz, is the author of The Eudaemonic Pie and Camping with the Prince and Other Tales of Science in Africa. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and three children.