A Scientific Peak

Scroll through a list of the latest incredible scientific discoveries and you might find an unexpected commonality—Boulder, Colorado. Once a Wild West city tucked between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, it is now home to some of the biggest names in science, including NCAR, NOAA, and NIST. How did big science come to Boulder?

A Scientific Peak chronicles the early stages of Boulder’s meteoric rise to become one of America’s smartest cities. In just two decades following World War II, sun–earth researchers connected to Harvard and the University of Colorado, together with both the state and local citizenry, made Boulder a center of the new space age. Much was changing in the way scientific research was funded and conducted in the United States, and events in Boulder reflected these turbulent times. 

Over the course of this story, Joseph P. Bassi introduces us to a wide variety of characters, including the tenacious Walter Orr Roberts, and the serendipitous brew of politics, passion, and sheer luck that, during the post-WWII and Cold War eras, would transform this “scientific Siberia” into the research mecca it is today.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 Sun–Earth Science Arrives in Colorado
3 From Leadville to Boulder
4 A Scientific Peak Begins to Develop in Boulder
5 “Nothing but a Fundraiser”
6 Global Science in One Place
7 An Atmosphere of Change
8 NCAR and Boulder’s Entry into the “Environmental Era”
9 Conclusion