Scientific temperaments

the long version

Robert Wilson, the particle physicist who designed and built some of the great machines of physics, including one of the largest and most elegant ever constructed--the Fermilab Accelerator. Mark Ptashne, the brilliant Harvard geneticist who turned his sixteen-year obsession with the macabre habits of a single microorganism into one of the most important works in contemporary biology. John McCarthy, one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. As the inventor of time sharing, computer languages and other computer esoterica. McCarthy, more than any other person, created the systems and ideas that made the home computer possible.