Few things in our lives can match the raw excitement of the achievement of new understanding: that moment when difficulties of a knotty problem evaporate, when what had been formidable suddenly becomes child’s play. How much more dramatic when that moment is not only a life-changing moment, but a world-changing moment; when the understanding reached is new not only to the discoverer, but to everyone! Scientific and technological advancement has generally been a smooth, steady progression; but it’s peppered with breakthrough moments, where leaps, twists, and turns of understanding have led to overnight changes in our perception of the world. When preparation, opportunity, and desire converge in a single person, the Accidental Genius emerges. This collection of stories takes us on a tour of human discovery, an expedition through a set of unique moments of concentrated experience that have built upon each other to create our understanding of the world.

• Learn the story of the accidental discovery (and the following flurry of activity) that resulted in the first Nobel Prize awarded in Physics, and the saving of countless lives.
• Find out how two summer vacations led to mistakes that ended up changing the practice of medicine.
• Learn how one man’s near death experience led to an invention that made him millions, and how what he did with those millions made his name recognizable around the world, more than a hundred years after his death.