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    A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane
    A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane
    A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane
    Audiobook13 hours

    A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane

    Written by Samanth Subramanian

    Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A biography of J. B. S. Haldane, the brilliant and eccentric British scientist whose innovative predictions inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

    J. B. S. Haldane's life was rich and strange, never short on genius or drama-from his boyhood apprenticeship to his scientist father, who first instilled in him a devotion to the scientific method; to his time in the trenches during the First World War, where he wrote his first scientific paper; to his numerous experiments on himself, including inhaling dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and drinking hydrochloric acid; to his clandestine research for the British Admiralty during the Second World War. He is best remembered as a geneticist who revolutionized our understanding of evolution, but his peers hailed him as a polymath.

    He foresaw in vitro fertilization, peak oil, and the hydrogen fuel cell, and his contributions ranged over physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, mathematics, and biostatistics. He was also a staunch Communist, which led him to Spain during the Civil War and sparked suspicions that he was spying for the Soviets. He wrote copiously on science and politics in newspapers and magazines, and he gave speeches in town halls and on the radio-all of which made him, in his day, as famous in Britain as Einstein.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJul 28, 2020
    ISBN9781684579853
    A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane
    Author

    Samanth Subramanian

    Samanth Subramanian is a New Delhi-based journalist.His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Intelligent Life, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and several other publications. His first book, Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast, won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize in 2010 and was shortlisted for the Andre Simon Award in 2013. His second book, This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War, won the Crossword Non-Fiction Prize in 2015 and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize the same year. He is a co- host of the fortnightly science podcast The Intersection.

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