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The brilliant frog has spent his lifetime developing skills in disciplines ranging from nuclear engineering to science writing. But he is probably better known to the digerati as the father of computer consultant extraordinaire Esther Dyson. Nonetheless, the slightly built Freeman Dyson is a giant among scientists, largely due to his talents as a writer.

His work as an interpreter of science for the general public has brought many rewards, the first of which is a body of work that includes the autobiographical "Disturbing the Universe" (1979), a meditation on nuclear disarmament, "Weapons and Hope" (1984) and a road map for the most important technologies of the coming century, "The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet" (1999). Dyson's writing has been widely praised for its poetry and artistry, and in 1996 he received the Lewis Thomas Prize, a Rockefeller University-sponsored award that recognizes scientists for their artistic achievements. The key to Dyson's life is that he has never been one to shy away from new experiences. Recalling that his real life began at age 45, when he published his first book, Dyson mused in 1992: "So long as you have courage and a sense of humor, it is never too late to start life afresh."

Born in 1923 in Crowthorne, Berkshire, in south England, Dyson grew up as "a mathematically inclined child born into a musical family ... without pretensions to scientific fame." The Dyson home was rich in cultural and artistic influences. His father, the composer/conductor Sir George Dyson, eventually became the director of the British Royal College of Music in London. Dyson's mother, Lady Mildred, a lawyer by training, was intensely interested in literature and language. Dyson recalls that his parents expressed their affection by encouraging him to explore arts and culture; they were in their early 40s when they started their family: "[Being raised by my mother and father] was more like being with grandparents than parents, but they certainly loved us in their own fashion. It was more intellectual than physical."

Missing from Dyson's boyhood home were scientific influences, until the family adopted one -- Sir Frank Dyson, Astronomer Royal. He was no relation to the Berkshire Dysons, but he was from the same part of Yorkshire as Sir George Dyson. In his 1992 book "From Eros to Gaia," Freeman Dyson recalls that the breakfast table discussions between his father and other relatives about Sir Frank's exploits heavily influenced his early interest in astronomy and spurred him to take up his pen as a 9-year-old and write a novel based on the activities of Sir Frank.

The unfinished manuscript of "Sir Phillip Robert's Erolunar Collision" is at once a snapshot of the astronomical events of 1931 and a window into a future project that would occupy a good portion of Dyson's professional ruminations: space travel. It's also a good satire of large-scale science projects. In 1931, the orbit of asteroid Eros was going to pass close to the Earth, providing an important opportunity for astronomers to get an accurate reading of the distance between the Earth and the sun. In the incomplete novel, Sir Phillip, director of the British South African Astronomical Society and a character based on Sir Frank, successfully predicts an Erolunar collision by calculating the orbit of Eros 10 years and 285 days in advance.

Dyson turned to one of his science-fiction heroes to help the plot along. The characters decide to rewrite the mission described in Jules Verne's "From Earth to the Moon and a Trip Round It" to change Eros' destination to go directly to the moon and land the astronomers on its surface to witness the collision. Then reality crept into Dyson's fiction: The astronomical society needed money. Sir Phillip spends the final pages of the manuscript trying to raise funds and design a spacecraft. The novel ends before Sir Phillip can leave Earth.

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