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

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 life: 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.