As Director of the Royal Institution and its Davy Faraday Research Laboratory throughout the 1990s, the author had a unique vantage point to observe how places and people condition the way science has been shaped in the past and continues to be today. Contents: Some Past Masters: Count Rumford's European Travels; Some Folks You Meet: Christian Klixbull Jorgensen (1931-2001); Olivier Kahn (1943-1999); and more.