First passion, then training -- Mathematics -- The path to follow -- What is science? -- The creative process -- What it takes -- Most likely to succeed -- I never changed -- Archetypes of the scientific mind -- Scientists as explorers of the universe -- A mentor and the start of a career -- The grails of field biology -- A celebration of audacity -- Know your subject, thoroughly -- Science as universal knowledge -- Searching for new worlds on Earth -- The making of theories -- Biological theory on a grand scale -- Theory in the real world -- The scientific ethic.
Summary
Weaves together more than twenty letters that illuminate the author's career and his motivations for becoming a biologist, explaining how success in the sciences depends on a passion for finding a problem and solving it.