"This is a book about science, technology, and love" writes Sherry Turkle. In it, we learn how a love for science can start with a love for an object: a microscope, a modem, a mud pie, a pair of dice, a fishing rod. Objects fire imagination and set young people on a path to a career in science. In this collection, distinguished scientists, engineers, and designers as well as twenty-five years of MIT students describe how objects encountered in childhood became part of the fabric of their scientific selves. In two major essays that frame the collection, Turkle tells a story of inspiration and connection through objects that is often neglected in standard science education and in our preoccupation with the virtual.

The senior scientists' essays trace the arc of a life: the gears of a toy car introduce the chain of cause and effect to artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert; microscopes disclose the mystery of how things work to MIT President and neuroanatomist Susan Hockfield; architect Moshe Safdie describes how his boyhood fascination with steps, terraces, and the wax hexagons of beehives lead him to a life immersed in the complexities of design. The student essays tell stories that echo these narratives: plastic eggs in an Easter basket reveal the power of centripetal force; experiments with baking illuminate the geology of planets; LEGO bricks model worlds, carefully engineered and colonized.

All of these voices, students and mentors, testify to the power of objects to awaken and inform young scientific minds. This is a truth that is simple, intuitive, and easily overlooked.

Introductory and concluding essays by:
Sherry Turkle.

Mentor essays by:
Susan Hockfield, Donald Ingber, Alan Kay, Sarah Kuhn, Donald Norman, Seymour Papert, Rosalind Picard, Moshe Safdie.

andquot;We live in the era of big science, with teams of hundreds of scientists poring over data on computer screens. In this sparkling collection, gifted students and world-class scientists remind us of the irreplaceable role of tangible objects, sensory impressions, and powerful experiences in the formation of the scientist.andquot;
andmdash;Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

andquot;'No ideas but in things,' wrote the poet William Carlos Williams. Sherry Turkle's eloquent and inspiring book brings the poet's insight to life. She shows us the things-to-think-with that brought generations of scientists to their vocations. Just as a butterfly may spark a hurricane, as wires and sockets brought a ten-year-old Richard Feynman to physics, objects spark the curiosity of young scientists. In an age when science education is in crisis, this splendid book offers us new insight about bringing young people into science. By looking at objects we see, in Turkle's terms, the connection between 'science, technology, and love.'andquot;
andmdash;Ray Kurzweil, Inventor, and author of The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

andquot;In the knowledge economy of the 21st century, a solid grounding in science and math is essential for our graduates to successfully compete in the global marketplace. The essays in Falling for Science deftly portray the impact that interaction with everyday objectsandmdash;a cardboard box, a stop sign, or a ring of keysandmdash;can have on the cultivation of a lifelong passion for scientific discovery, a passion that led many of the essayists into careers devoted to finding solutions to the world's most pressing problems.andquot;
andmdash;Lou Anna K. Simon, President, Michigan State University

Passion for objects and love for science: scientists and students reflect on how objects fired their scientific imaginations.

Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller MauzProfessor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and Founder and Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. A psychoanalytically trained sociologist and psychologist, she is the author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (Twentieth Anniversary Edition, MIT Press), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, and Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution She is the editor of Evocative Objects: Things We Think With and Falling for Science: Objects in Mind (both published by the MIT Press).