[ploggingdev]

(Off topic)

> Scientific biographies often fail to give a realistic description of personality, and thereby create a false idea of scientific work.

Any recommendations for biographies which give a realistic look into famous scientists' lives? I am reading the Einstein biography by Walter Isaacson and it's pretty good so far.

Completely off topic : how do you configure a LAN to have <domain>/~username urls (such as the linked post's url) exposed to the internet? I remember having such a directory in my school's linux network where I could place files in public or public_html (can't remember)and other users could access it by going to <internal school ip>/~myname, but it wasn't exposed to the internet.

[veddox]

"The Invention of Nature" about Alexander von Humboldt, by Andrea Wulf.

Very in-depth book about a naturalist who deserves to be much better known than he generally is. It also includes several chapters with mini-biographies of famous people who were influenced by Humboldt.

[__float]

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_userdir.html

[hoke_t]

Try "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman?"

[HiroshiSan]

Surely you're joking Mr Feynman is an autobiography and definitely does not reflect Feynmans life unbiasedly. Its a great book but if you want a more unbiased account of his life check out Genius by James Gleick.

Walter Isaacson also just came out with a biography on da Vinci and he has one on Benjamin Franklin, though I never finished it, it was written to the same standard as Einstein.

[sn9]

Surely You're Joking is a great read but Genius is what you read for genuine insight into the man, and it's probably the best biography I've yet read.

[BeetleB]

While entertaining, I think biographies are better than autobiographies.