In his latest work, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of Outliers—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful people and asks the question: Why are high achievers different from regular people? Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, the cultural forces that make Asians so successful at math and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of Blink and The Tipping Point.

About the Giants of Science Series: This is not just for folks who got A’s in high school chemistry. The scientists are such good storytellers, their subjects so provocative and the conversation so easygoing that all you have to do is bring your mind (and a friend). Robert Krulwich of Nova Science Now, an NPR regular and an ABC News correspondent, is the host.