About the Author

Clifford A. Pickover is the lead writer for the brain-boggler column in Discover magazine and the author of numerous acclaimed science books. He has been featured on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and CNN. A research staff member at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, Dr. Pickover is a prolific inventor who holds numerous patents. He lives in Yorktown Heights, New York.

Reviews

"Bucky Fuller though big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes both." --Wired"Filled with 200 years of eccentric genius. This is lively and immensely enjoyable scientific history." --Publishers Weekly"Pickover's originality has found itself the perfect topic." --Ian Stewart, Scientific American)

YA-Pickover tackles an attention-grabbing topic with clarity, understanding, and a sense of fun. The dedication summarizes the tone of the volume: "This book is dedicated to the cracked, for they shall let in the light." Among the "strange brains" discussed are Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Francis Galton, world traveler, inventor, and racist. Each chapter has a "Fact File" of basic information on the individual, while the "Straight Dope" section delineates that person's history, achievements, and compulsions or oddities, often including diagrams or reproductions of their famous accomplishments. In the chapter on Nikola Tesla, the lesser-known proponent of AC current in opposition to Edison's DC, readers learn of his strange abhorrence to pearls that rendered him incapable of conversation with a pearl-wearing companion. The author concludes with a summation of mental disorders that have often afflicted the talented and genius among us: bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and temporal lobe epilepsy. An interesting topic, presented in a readable manner.-Carol DeAngelo, American Chemical Society Library, Washington, DC

In his latest offering, Pickover, an authority in computer graphics and a prolific popularizer of science (Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide, LJ 4/1/96), purports to explore the link between eccentricities and obsessive-compulsive disorder in geniuses. The bulk of his book comprises nine biographical/psychological profiles, uneven in length and applicability, of such figures as Nicola Tesla, Samuel Johnson, and Ted Kaczynski. The rest of the book is a hodgepodge of essays on brain chemistry and mental disorders, intelligence, and over 25 pages of verbatim results from an unscientific Internet questionnaire. Two appendixes round out the volume: a runners-up list and an updates-and-breakthroughs section that reads like Oliver Sacks-lite. The amount of filler in this book, from lists of Johnson's epigrams to Kaczynski's scientific papers to superfluous illustrations to the aforementioned Internet discussion, detracts from the quality of the work. Recommended only for nonresearch collections.‘Wade Lee, Univ. of Toledo Libs.

"Bucky Fuller though big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes both." --Wired

"Filled with 200 years of eccentric genius. This is lively and immensely enjoyable scientific history." --Publishers Weekly"Pickover's originality has found itself the perfect topic." --Ian Stewart, Scientific American)