"The essays in this book arose from a series of interviews conducted over CUNY TV at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, on Fifth Avenue in mid-town Manhattan. The TV program was called " Science & the Written Word " and was broadcast by CUNY TV, throughout the five boroughs of New York"--Pref. Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-159) and index.

Genes, girls, and Gamow / James Watson -- "Ben Franklin's scientific amusements" / Dudley Herschbach -- The same and not the same / Roald Hoffmann -- The God particle / Leon Lederman -- "The purine path to chemotherapy" / Gertrude B. Elion -- The discovery of radioimmunoassay / Rosalyn Yalow -- Rosalyn Yalow Nobel laureate: her life and work in medicine / Eugene Straus -- In search of divine reality: science as a source for inspiration / Lothar Schèafer -- Atomic fragments: a daughter's questions / Mary Palevsky -- The man who loved only numbers: the story of Paul Erdos and the search for mathematical truth / Paul Hoffman -- Lise Meitner: a life in physics / Ruth Lewin Sime -- Crystal fire: the birth of the information age / Michael Riordan.