This book would not be in your hands if Bill Thomas, editor in chief of Doubleday, had not taken such a risk and shown so much faith in an incomplete manuscript by an unpublished writer. I can’t thank him enough for his constant support and encouragement. My agents—Chris Calhoun, at Sterling Lord Literistic, Agnes Krup, and Jody Hotchkiss—transformed a dream into a reality, and a writer into an author. My family and friends—Jane, Betsy, both Charlies, Tricia, Claire, Jack, George, Sandy, and Julie McGowan, David Lusterman, Mary VanClay, Jovanina Pagano, Yung and Chao-mei Chin, Andy and Rachel Kuhn, Mark and Lorna LaRiviere, Bob and Nancy Mazzoli, Fiona Pixley, Guy Rabut, and Jamie Dettmer—were unstinting in their enthusiasm and belief in this endeavor during the many long years before it came, at last, to fruition. Dr. Eric Canel deserves a special thanks for so patiently explaining the concepts of quantum physics to me; I still have the restaurant napkins with his sketches illuminating how it could be possible that Schroedinger’s cat both did and didn’t die. The Greenwich Public Library, in the depth of its collection and the always friendly and helpful staff, afforded everything I needed in my research, while the Metro North Railroad has over the past fifteen years provided me with the best office in the world—safe, dependable, and with conductors who were quite understanding as to how on occasion a laptop might be remembered but a ticket left behind.
Lastly, it is with the utmost gratitude, admiration, and affection that I thank my editor on this book, Amy Scheibe, who helped me center the note.