Dr. Héctor Muiños Olivas 

My name is John Tyndall is a historical novel based on the life of the eponymous Irish physicist and natural philosopher. It includes some of Tyndall’s major achievements, such as formulating the physical basis of the greenhouse effect and giving the first explanation for the color of the sky, but it also incorporates significant fictional innovations. In this novel, the man known to history as John Tyndall is in fact a brilliant imposter.

The story follows an unnamed protagonist, a gifted, impoverished young autodidact with scientific aspirations, who becomes acquainted with wealthy, mediocre student John Tyndall. When Tyndall dies accidentally, our protagonist seizes the chance to assume Tyndall’s identity and to pursue his passion for science. Such a drastic decision leads him to meet many friends he would never have met otherwise—from Tyndall’s lifelong friend Thomas Hirst to luminaries Michael Faraday, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Tennyson—but the path he has chosen is not as easy as he would have wished. Not only does he face the constant threat of exposure; he is hunted by an uncanny enemy lurking in the shadows and looming over everything: the ghost of John Tyndall.

How high is the price for becoming a scientist? And to what unexpected places can paying it take you?