A Quantum Life

In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist
emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to
ascend through the top ranks of research physics.

Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding
stars-a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in his
community, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive
his childhood in some of the country’s toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans,
Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the
persona of “gangsta nerd”-dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs
with computer programs that model Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found
himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit
he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black
professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as
the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized
his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to
honor his African ancestors.