True Genius ─ The Life and Work of Richard Garwin, the Most Influential Scientist You've Never Heard of

Called a "true genius" by Enrico Fermi, Richard Garwin has influenced modern life in far-reaching ways, yet he is hardly known outside the physics community. This is the first biography of one of America's great minds--a top physicist, a brilliant technological innovator, and a trusted advisor of presidents for sixty years. Among his many contributions to modern technology are innovations we now take for granted: air-traffic control systems, touch screens, color monitors, laser printers, GPS satellite navigation, and many other facets of everyday contemporary life.

But certainly his most important work has been on behalf of nuclear disarmament. As a key member of the Los Alamos team that developed the hydrogen bomb (he created the final design), Garwin subsequently devoted much of his career to ensuring that nuclear weapons never again be used. He has spent hundreds of hours testifying before Congress, serving on government advisory committees, and doing work that is still classified, all the while working for IBM as a researcher.

A genuine polymath, his ideas extend from propulsion systems for interplanetary flight to preventing flu epidemics. Never shy about offering his opinions, even to rigid government bureaucracies unwilling to change, Garwin continues to show leaders how to do the smart thing. The world is a more interesting and safer place because of his many accomplishments.

Joel N. Shurkin is a freelance science writer, former science reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the Three Mile Island nuclear-reactor disaster. He is the author of nine published books on science and the history of science, most recently Broken Genius: A Biography of William B. Shockley. He writes regularly for Inside Science News Service at the American Institute for Physics and has written for Slate, Scientific American, and Science Friday. Among his academic positions have been the Snedden Chair in Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the founder of the science-journalism internship program at Stanford University, and science writer emeritus at Stanford University.