Navigating poverty, violence, and racism, the young James Plummer had two guiding stars: a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd was a soft target in the ghetto, where James faced years of bullying and abuse. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford University, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future and a dangerous crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor and the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism and classism of the scientific establishment. When he finally seized his dream of a life in astrophysics, he adopted a new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, to honor his African ancestors. Alternately heartbreaking and hopeful, A Quantum Life narrates one man's remarkable quest across an ever-expanding universe filled with entanglement and choice.