Stanislaw Marcin Ulam was one of the many gifted scientists involved in the effort to create a hydrogen bomb at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the 1950s. As a professional mathematician, he was integral to the bomb development program because of his expertise in thermonuclear reactions and mathematical physics, which allowed him to solve the problem of how to start fusion in the hydrogen bomb. Along with John von Neumann, Ulam also invented the Monte Carlo method. In addition, his work on the new computers helped them become more flexible and useful.

Ulam, the son of a lawyer, was born in Lemberg, Poland, in the Austrian Empire (now Lvov, Ukraine) on April 13, 1909. When he was 10, he began attending the gymnasium (a classical college-preparatory school) in his hometown, and soon thereafter became interested in astronomy and physics. A brilliant boy, he became determined to understand...