Valerie Miké, a native of Budapest, Hungary, has a doctorate in mathematics and is a professor at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, with a special interest in ethical issues pertaining to uncertainty in biomedical science and technology. Hungarian historians of the older generation who had personal knowledge of events urged her to undertake a biography of her father, lest all be lost for posterity. Important help was provided by her brother John Jr., an MIT-trained physicist with a wide range of interests including history and political theory.