查尔斯·塞费，出版了4本个人著作，其中包括《瓶中的太阳》和《零》，后者是首部荣获美国马尔塔·阿尔布朗文学奖的非小说类文学作品，也是《纽约时报》推荐图书。他的个人作品经常见于《科学》、《纽约时报》、《新科学家》、《科学美国人》、《经济学家》和《连线》等报刊杂志上。他生活在纽约，现任纽约大学新闻学教授。

When weapons builders detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, they tapped into the biggest source of energy in our solar system a " the phenomenon that makes the sun shine. Nuclear fusion seems a virtually unlimited source of power, but it has been at the center of a tragic and comic pursuit that has left scores of scientists battered and disgraced. Like the eternal quest to build a perpetual motion machine, the dream of harnessing the energy of a miniature star is irresistible. Not only would a fusion energy device give the world endless electrical power, it would give power to its inventors a " financial power, the power of fame, even military might. Right now the worlda (TM)s richest countries are spending billions of dollars trying to build a giant fusion reactor. Yet if history is any guide, the money will not bring the dream of fusion energy within reach. Indeed, the quest for fusion energy has been a failure, generation after generation. Fusion is at the heart of some of the biggest scientific scandals of all time, and Charles Seife traces its story from its beginning into the twenty-first century. Even after fusion scientists face defeat after defeat, they continue trying to put the sun in a bottle, hoping against hope that they will succeed where others have failed. The science of wishful thinking is as strong as ever, and this book is our key to understanding why.