Based on 60 interviews with physicists at Universities across the United States, from young graduate students to older professionals well into their careers, this text offers an accou t of the worlds in which scientists work. These scientists reveal their dreams of fame and glory whilst also discussing the meaning of success and failure. Their stories are of aspiration and anxiety, disappointment and tragedy, hope and achievment. As the scientists age in their profession the spectre of failure often visits them and they have to accept something less than scientific immortality or even the Nobel Prize. The stories examine ambition by uncovering the forces that drive people and describe how these forces persist or fade over time.