Excerpt from The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog by Carly Anne York, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Einstein found his academic home—and endless support for his curiosity-driven research—at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. The institute, the brainchild of Abraham Flexner, was envisioned to be a "paradise for scholars," where researchers would have no administrative duties or students. Their job description was simply the "unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge." As a professor who spends an extraordinary amount of time in faculty meetings, this does indeed sound like a paradise. It was Flexner's belief that human curiosity, mixed with a dash of serendipity, was the path to transformative ideas. His conviction was that only from the perspective of hindsight would knowledge that was gained through unhampered inquiry end in practical applications. Einstein was hardly the only scholar to benefit from Flexner's vision. His institute birthed thirty-five Nobel laureates, forty-two Fields medalists, twenty-one Abel Prize laureates, and many winners of Wolf and MacArthur prizes. Clearly, the focus on curiosity-driven research has led to scientific discoveries that rocked our world.

Excerpted from The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: And Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science. Copyright © 2025 by Carly Anne York. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.