James Stein graduated in math and minored in physics at Yale University, afterwards receiving a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. After an initially teaching at UCLA, he joined the mathematics faculty of California State University at Long Beach, where he is presently teaches.  He is the author of more than thirty research articles in mathematics, and has served on several state and national committees on mathematics education.  Several years ago, he started writing books on mathematics and science, including How Math Explains the World, How Math Can Save Your Life, The Right Decision, and Cosmic Numbers: The Numbers That Define Our Universe. Two of these books were offered as selections by the Scientific American Book Club.  It was during the writing of How Math Explains the World that he had the idea that led to his writing The Paranormal Equation.