I wish I'd made you angry earlier

by Max F. Perutz

Science is no quiet life. Imagination, creativity, ambition, and conflict are as vital and abundant in science as in artistic endeavors. In this collection of essays, the Nobel Prize-winning protein chemist Max Perutz writes about the pursuit of scientific knowledge, which he sees as an enterprise providing not just new facts but cause for reflection and revelation, as in a poem or painting. Perutz seeks to convince us that science is a passionate enterprise and the pursuit of knowledge a sortie into the unknown. There is no more persuasive advocate. These pages are filled with portraits of twentieth-century giants, Pauling, Meitner, Bragg, Haber, Medawar, Szilard, Jacob, Krebs, and others. There are entertaining glimpses of Perutz's own long and exceptional life: his flight from Vienna in the 30's and internment in Britain as an enemy alien in World War II, rescue from the sea after a U-boat attack, involvement in a scheme to make ships of ice for refuelling aircraft in the North Atla