A Quantum Life (Adapted for Young Adults): My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars

A NASA astrophysicist narrates his improbable journey from an impoverished childhood and an adolescence mired in drugs and crime to the nation's top physics PhD program at Stanford in this inspiring coming-of-age memoir.

Born into extreme poverty and emotional deprivation, James Edward Plummer was blessed with a genius I.Q. and a love of science. But in his community, a young bookworm quickly becomes a target for violence and abuse. As he struggles to survive his childhood in some of the toughest cities in the country, and his teenage years in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, James adopts the hybrid persona of a "gangsta nerd"--dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that untangle the mysteries of Einstein's relativity theory.

When his prodigious intellect gains him admission to the elite Physics PhD program at Stanford University, James finds himself torn between his love of science and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor Art Walker, the lone Black faculty member in the physics department, James finally seizes his dream of a life in science and becomes his true adult self, changing his name to Hakeem Muata Oluseyi in honor--and celebration--of his African heritage.

In the tradition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Other Wes Moore, A Quantum Life is an uplifting journey to the stars fueled by hope, hustle, and a hungry mind. As he charts his development as a young scientist, Oluseyi also plumbs the mysteries of the universe where potential personal outcomes are as infinite as the stars in the sky.

Author: Hakeem Oluseyi, Joshua Horwitz
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 08/15/2023
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.70w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781984849632
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2023
Booklist 06/01/2023 pg. 65

About the Author
Hakeem Oluseyi, PhD, is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, television personality, and public speaker. He is currently a Clarence J. Robinson Professor at George Mason University and president of the National Society of Black Physicists. Previously, he was a Distinguished Professor of Aerospace, Physics & Space Sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology from 2007 to 2019 and has held professorships at MIT, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, and the University of Cape Town. Dr. Oluseyi has also served as the Space Science Education Manager of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and chief science officer of Discovery Science. He has appeared in science and engineering programming on Netflix, Discovery Science, Nat Geo, PBS, BBC, and more. Dr. Oluseyi is an inductee of the National Academy of Inventors, the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame, and the Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society.

Joshua Horwitz is the author of multiple nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestseller War of the Whales: A True Story, which won the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.