Christopher Sykes (4) (1945–)

A mosaic portrait made up of impressions by and about this very human, deep-feeling man. Many personal photos and words show his qualities:

Quirky, courageous, funny, compassionate and nobody's fool, who could conceive that in one life a person could go from being a young working class kid on to university, falling in love and standing by the person you love as she faces the greatest of life's challenges (her own approaching death)at a very young age, believing you're fighting the Nazis by show more working on the Manhatan Project to build the world's first atom bomb, and later feeling deeply critical about this and speaking out against it...

Ever the iconoclast, he encouraged all young people who wrote to him to follow their own path regardless of what others thought, and wasn't afraid to play his beloved bongos as he travelled everywhere around the world, including when going to accept the Nobel Prize for physics.

He was also not afraid to tangle with power politics in Washington DC and at NASA when he wrote a dissenting opinion that was published as part of the official investigation into the Challenger space shuttle disaster. He exposed how bureaucrats deliberately overlooked design flaws in the now infamous "O" rings in order to meet public deadlines, even as he himself was dying of cancer.

A truly remarkable man. His humanity shines through in this book, as it also does in his letters collected in the book, "Don't You Have Time to Think?"

Both are highly recommended! show less

Surprisingly entertaining.