Nothing pushed me further into a scientificcareer.
It's very hard for me toconvey this, but for as far back as I can
remember, that was a very deep-seated drive.
Theonly evidence I have on that score was my
first composition, which and the mere factthat
mother saved it will say something.
But in second grade, "What do you want tobe when you
grow up?"
"I want to be scientist like Einstein anddiscover theories in mathematics."
I candocument at least that part of it.
[laughter] It's a mystery where that camefrom and exactly
what drove it.
What nurtured it were my teachers at school,the library system in particular - I
learned far more from the books that I readthan I did from in classes, and a somewhat
ambiguous relationship with father, but inthe end, one that was very encouraging.
He wasdisappointed that I, in some sense, repudiated
his Rabbinical approach to the meaning oflife,
but in the end it was not a repudiation.
We came to a creative compromise that theLord has
many mansions and science was one of them.
So his pride in me and my accomplishment-even though it was not in the immediate direction
of his own calling-was a positivereinforcement.
But I had no material content from that.
The only books at home that wouldhave had any bearing on this kind of learning
and they were dictionary and encyclopedia.
Iread them from cover to cover When I said
"encyclopedic interest," it had that manifestation.