In this book, István Hargittai, an internationally renowned physical chemist, narrates his life by introducing over forty personalities that played noteworthy roles in his career. The time span ranges from the Holocaust, which the author survived, through the periods of hard and softer dictatorships of Soviet-type socialism, and the current revival of an autocratic regime in Hungary. He overcame barriers to get a high school, then a university education. He received excellent training in Moscow and was active at Hungarian, American and other international scientific venues, and he has interacted with more Nobel laureates than anyone in the world.

The chapters feature such famous contributors to world science as Francis Crick, Richard L. Garwin, Ronald J. Gillespie, Avram Hershko, George Klein, Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield, Peter D. Lax, Paul Nurse, Yuval Ne'eman, George A. Olah, Guy Ourisson, Michael Polanyi, Andrei D. Sakharov, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Edward Teller, JamesD. Watson, and Eugene P. Wigner. The areas covered include chemistry, molecular biology, physics, materials science, and mathematics.

"On the basis of Hargittai's mosaic of his personal and scientific life, I could compose two further patterns. One would be the history of the twentieth century and the other the science history of the same time period."

From the Foreword by the late philosopher Agnes Heller, Goethe Medalist,Wallenberg Medalist, and Hannah Arendt Prize laureate

Otto Bastiansen

László Bitó
Francis Crick
Mihály Csonkás
György Dalos
Edgar Degas
Lars Ernster
László Fejes Tóth
Árpád Furka
Pál Gadó
Richard L. Garwin
Ronald J. Gillespie
André Goodfriend
Árpád Göncz
József Hernádi
Avram Hershko
Lloyd Kahn
Gyorgy Kepes
Károly Kerti
George Klein
Arthur Koestler
Ferenc Lantos
Torvard C. Laurent
Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield
Peter D. Lax
Sándor Lengyel
Alan L. Mackay
George Marx
Barbara Mez-Starck
Kurt Mislow
Charles T. Munger
Yuval Ne'eman
Paul Nurse
George A. Olah
István Orosz
Guy Ourisson
Michael Polanyi
Gabriela Radulescu
Andrei D. Sakharov
Géza Simonffy and Nikolai N. Semenov
Albert Szent-Györgyi
Edward Teller
Lev V. Vilkov
James D. Watson
Richard Wiegandt
Eugene P. Wigner.