"He parodied himself in an essay called 'The Gravity Hater' about a 'friend' who took gravity to be 'his personal, bitterest enemy. He delivered threatening, abusive speeches about it and convincingly, so he imagined, set out to prove its entire worthlessness and the bliss that "would come to pass" through its abolition." Gravity pressed us down like worms, but a gravity-free environment 'would make the poor equal to the rich" (18).

"To be sure, technological superiority was to be a primary legitimizer of Communist authority, but in order to whip the nation to the necessary efforts, the regime constantly had to invoke the threat from more developed, hostile states abroad" (29).

"In this way the Cold War for 'intellectual reparations' in the form of Nazi scientists and their secret weapons began before the political Cold War was apparent. At Potsdam in July the Big Three powers agreed to share German...