Born 1 September 1939 in Troy, New York. His father’s work as a rag man and his father’s research on synthetics during World War II. Describes his home and early schooling. Family moves to Westchester County, North Tarrytown, New York. Ryan attends a private day school there and then enrolls at Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. Mentions science at Hotchkiss. Lists his early interests in how things work, blueprints, and maps. Ryan sails and enjoys crew during summers at Cape Cod. Enrolls at Williams College. Measures Sputnik’s Doppler shift for a physics course. Contemplates a career in space science. Is introduced to a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientist and oceanography. Following graduation from Williams, Ryan joins a Woods Hole cruise as a technician. While working at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology soil lab, Ryan hears Lamont’s Bruce Heezen lecture. Heezen introduces Ryan to Lamont Geological Observatory. Ryan starts graduate work at Columbia University. Meets Lamont director, W. Maurice Ewing, at a Geological Society of America conference. Ewing’s unique presentation described. Compares Lamont science to Woods Hole’s methods. Compares the two institutions’ equipment. Ewing’s work measuring oceanic sediment thickness. Ryan’s graduate work. Continental drift at Lamont, Woods Hole, and Williams. Ewing’s unfavorable impression of sea floor spreading. Characterizes John Nafe. Takes classes from Nafe, Heezen, and Fred Donath. Ryan develops an interest in the Mediterranean Sea. He continues making summer cruises with Woods Hole. Attends the Second Oceanographic Conference in Moscow, Russia. Critiques the insipid nature of the Soviet scientists’ presentations. Turns in a biting critique of the oppressiveness of Soviet science to the U.S. Academy of Sciences. Recounts Heezen’s presentation at the conference and briefly discusses the controversy at Lamont surrounding Heezen’s talk. Mentions the rift between Heezen and Ewing and how it affected him. Writes his thesis on studies of the floor of the Mediterranean. Describes student political demonstrations at Columbia in the 1960s. Discusses how Lamont gathered information about the earth as a way to understand environmental issues. Mentions Lamont’s involvement in studying nuclear waste disposal. His experience on a Canadian ship in Bermuda that was boarded by Greenpeace recounted. Ryan and Ewing write to President Richard M. Nixon about the lack of oil reserves on the continental shelves of the United States. Following graduation in 1971, Ryan continues as a research scientist at Lamont. Ewing departs for Texas in 1972, taking some Lamont personnel with him. Briefly mentions problems during Manik Talwani’s directorship. Describes fundamental changes in scientific thinking. Changes in funding patterns, collection of data, instrumentation, atmosphere on the ships, women on cruises, and computers at sea discussed. Compares international collaboration begun at the root level to top-down collaboration. National styles of science. Describes the usefulness of documentaries for teaching science. His work fusing science and the humanities. Lists what has aided Lamont’s success as a research school: friendships, ships bringing people together, and the cafeteria. Describes his role in the production of the Heezen and Tharp 1977 map of the world ocean floor. Gives his impressions of the first sea floor map, the North Atlantic Physiographic Diagram. Compares the map with modern satellite imaging maps. Finding the funding for the 1977 world map’s publication. How the maps were put together.