Introduction: The long road to reason -- Second inventors count for nothing : Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, 1673-1716 -- The fanatic and the tax collector : Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Priestley, 1774-1794 -- Of monkeys and men : Charles Darwin and Richard Owen, 1859-1882 -- The battle of the currents : Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, 1884-1893 -- Of atom bombs and human beings : the Allies and the Axis powers, 1939-1945 -- The race for the prize : Francis Crick and James Watson versus Linus Pauling versus Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, 1951-1953 -- Reaching for the moon : the United States and the Soviet Union, 1957-1969 -- The battle of the cyber-kings : Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, 1995-
Summary:
As George Bernard Shaw said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Like other creative geniuses, scientists have achieved breakthroughs as a result of irrational motives--notably the desire to best a rival. Revealing how each resulted in extraordinary discoveries, Michael White explores eight all-too-human rivalries over the past four centuries.--From publisher description.
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