Fischer Black

Here is David Warsh on Fischer Black.

This is the best part:

A few months earlier, while having trouble fastening the collar button of his shirt, he had joked with his wife that perhaps the problem was a tumor. Instead of going to doctor, however, he plunged into reading up on the possibilities -- "research," he called it. And when he finally got the diagnosis of the throat cancer that soon would end his life, Mehrling relates, "he burst into spontaneous laughter."