The Physicist Who Defied the Temperance Laws of 1905 Berkeley

Ludwig Boltzmann is best known as the Austrian physicist who wrote down the statistical formula for entropy, but if the physics thing hadn't worked out, he would have made an excellent travel writer. The travelogue he composed of his 1905 trip to Berkeley, California, is chock-full of amusing anecdotes, keen observations, and local history of dubious accuracy. It's pure joy to read.