A Quantum Life
My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars
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Narrated by:
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Hakeem Oluseyi
About this listen
In this inspiring coming-of-age memoir, a world-renowned astrophysicist emerges from an impoverished childhood and crime-filled adolescence to ascend through the top ranks of research physics.
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
“You’ll encounter one extraordinary turn of events after another, as the extraordinary chess player, puzzle solver, and occasional grifter works his way from grinding poverty and deep despair to worldwide acclaim as a physicist.” (Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society)
Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars - a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd is a soft target, and James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country’s toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of “gangsta nerd” - dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors.
Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A Quantum Life narrates one man’s remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.
©2021 Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Hakeem Oluseyi’s journey to adulthood is not only lyrical but immensely expansive and powerful. Moving across the American West and South, A Quantum Life encompasses with equal grace matters of particle physics and matters of a fractured family, challenges that are self-wrought and challenges inflicted by racism, and triumphs over an academic landscape engineered against poor African Americans as well as triumphs of the human heart.” (Jeff Hobbs, New York Times best-selling author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace)
"A Quantum Life is not only a story about resilience but also about the power of science as a transcendent force for personal transformation.... An important book for anyone who wants to understand how the fire of inquiry, the burning demand to know the world and its beauty intimately, can take root in a heart and lift it up to shine brightly with the stars it most cherishes.” (NPR)
“A physicist works with the statistical nature of the cosmos to predict the future - possible outcomes and unlikely ones. In A Quantum Life, you’ll encounter one extraordinary turn of events after another, as the extraordinary chess player, puzzle solver, and occasional grifter works his way from grinding poverty and deep despair to worldwide acclaim as a physicist. As you turn each page, you may not believe this outcome is possible. Read on.” (Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society)
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- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
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things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Pregnant Girl
- A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families
- By: Nicole Lynn Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicky Sunshine
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.
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Political
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-23
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Will
- By: Will Smith, Mark Manson
- Narrated by: Will Smith
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.
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Will sure loves Will
- By Kejeco on 11-18-21
By: Will Smith, and others
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This Might Get a Little Heavy
- A Memoir
- By: Ralphie May, Nils Parker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest stand-up comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed - Ralphie lost half his body weight - others did not: He will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up.
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brilliant and tragic
- By Timothy Trujillo on 08-12-18
By: Ralphie May, and others
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Not So Pure and Simple
- By: Lamar Giles
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Del has had a crush on Kiera Westing since kindergarten. And now, during their junior year, she’s finally available. So when Kiera volunteers for an opportunity at their church, Del’s right behind her. Though he quickly realizes he’s inadvertently signed up for a Purity Pledge. His dad thinks his wires are crossed, and his best friend, Qwan, doesn’t believe any girl is worth the long game. But Del’s not about to lose his dream girl, and that’s where fellow pledger Jameer comes in.
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Absolutely fantastic
- By Amazon Customer on 01-28-20
By: Lamar Giles
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Reprieve
- A Novel
- By: James Han Mattson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize - a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
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creepy escape room story
- By Barbara S on 11-18-21
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Undocumented
- A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League
- By: Dan-el Padilla Peralta
- Narrated by: Dan-el Padilla Peralta
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy he came here legally with his family. Together they left Santo Domingo behind, but life in New York City was harder than they imagined. Their visas lapsed, and Dan-el's father returned home. But Dan-el's courageous mother was determined to make a better life for her bright sons. Undocumented is a classic story of the triumph of the human spirit. It also is the perfect cri de coeur for the debate on comprehensive immigration reform.
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A must read, but
- By Louise de Marillac on 10-10-15
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The Ditchdigger's Daughters
- A Black Family's Astonishing Success Story
- By: Yvonne S. Thornton M.D., Jo Coudert
- Narrated by: Fran L. Washington
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Donald Thornton was a ditchdigger who wanted more for his six daughters. "I love you better than I love life," he assured his children. "But I'm not always gonna be around to look after you, and no man's gonna come along and offer to take care of you, because you ain't light-skinned. That's why you gotta be able to look after yourselves. And for that you gotta be smart."
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Perfection
- By Anonymous User on 06-24-24
By: Yvonne S. Thornton M.D., and others
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Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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A Hope in The Unseen
- An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling investigative journalist Ron Suskind based this book on his Pulitzer Prize winning articles about Cedric Jennings, a Black youth struggling to survive one of D.C.'s toughest school districts. A moving portrait of inner city life, A Hope in the Unseen offers a view of life through the eyes of someone trying desperately to make his way up from the bottom.
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Great Story
- By Adam Evans on 12-25-10
By: Ron Suskind
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Members Only
- By: Sameer Pandya
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Raj Bhatt is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he's cautiously come to love. But it's there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke.
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Stick with it... so worth it!
- By Andrea R Martinez on 09-02-20
By: Sameer Pandya
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Say I'm Dead
- A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love
- By: E. Dolores Johnson
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Fearful of prison time - or lynching - for violating Indiana’s anti-miscegenation laws in the 1940s, E. Dolores Johnson's Black father and White mother fled Indianapolis to secretly marry in Buffalo. Her mother simply vanished, evading an FBI and police search that ended with the declaration to her family that she was the victim of foul play, either dead or sold into white slavery.
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Deeply meaningful important read
- By A.M.Rousseau on 12-21-21
What listeners say about A Quantum Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Megan Ulbricht
- 07-08-21
Unique listen
Wild and inspiring story. Couldn’t put it down. I hope he continues to lift POC in the sciences, it is so important. I’m a woman in physics so I can relate to aspects of feeling like an outsider. That he had a black mentor was huge.
I found it odd that he gained such perspective on himself, his childhood, his drug use, and yet seemed oblivious to how poorly he treated his romantic partners. Perhaps he feels remorse but he didn’t mention it in the book, despite the storylines related to his relationships.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mickey
- 06-24-22
Child Boy MAN
I thoroughly enjoyed this work of art. I was taken on such a journey. I could see it and almost feel the texture of the environments. I'm better for reading it. True definition of NOT having to be the product of his environment knowing within himself as well as seeking positive affirmations about the possibilities of his life. Awesome!!
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- Anonymous User
- 10-12-21
Hard to stop listening to
If you are familiar with Hakeem and his work you can’t help but to wonder how he got to where he is now. Listening to this book put me through a roller coaster of emotions and often found myself going to work late because i just had to hear more. Such an awesome book that can give hope to people who might feel like they are at rock bottom
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mr Public
- 06-18-21
Riveting and Inspiring
This book is incredible. His life has been a rollercoaster, and he brings you along for the ride while narrating his story in a masterful way. Highly recommended !
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- Anthony N.
- 06-22-21
Amazing story of overcoming obstacles
This book goes into details about struggles most people don't think about or understand that not only get in the way of someone's educational goals, but also showcases how people do not start life on equal grounds. This book will help open your eyes to diversity, build empathy for others that struggle, and show you to not give up and keep pushing forward.
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- CARLO
- 08-06-22
Fantastic and Inspiring Story
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this story. Dr. Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz did a great job with composing the content in a way that flowed perfectly. Dr. Oluseyi overcame some incredible obstacles to grow into the man he is today. I cannot think of a biography that I enjoyed as much as this one. I very rarely write reviews, but I felt compelled to do so for this book. I highly recommend this book.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-16-21
Just WOW
What an unbelievable story of triumph. It's makes me proud to be a scientist. I'll be sharing the story with my students as well.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Senor Hurt
- 11-26-21
Amazing
This True Story of making ones way from on the run from a life on the run to a life in academics is truly inspiring! The author is bravely honest about the real lows but I makes one realize that is far down as you may be that realizing your dream IS ATTAINABLE if you continue to put in the work no matter what your starting point is
Very well read by the author
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- T. Young
- 06-21-21
Wow! I am shook.
Shooked in a good way. Absolutely amazing! This book is so good. I am keeping it simple in my description. Just Good!
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- Jcarroll22
- 09-01-21
The story we all need to hear
I was absolutely floored by this story. Hakeem’s journey is so rare but so beautiful! This guy had absolutely everything going against him to succeed but damn, he did it! For every science nerd out there who thinks it can’t be done…give this story a listen!
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