 After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes. |
| My life as a working theorist began three months after this preliminary study and background reading, when Oscar gently nudged me toward working on a particular problem. |
| Nevertheless, the realization that breaking a pencil point would have far less disastrous consequences played little or no role, I believe, in this decision to explore theory! |
| About 1960, it became clear that it was best for me to bring the experimental part of my research program to a close - there was too much to do on the theoretical aspects - and I began the process of winding down the experiments. |
| I have always loved going to school. |
| Being exposed to theory, stimulated by a basic love of concepts and mathematics, was a marvelous experience. |
| My education at Baron Byng High School was excellent, with dedicated masters (boys and girls were separate). |
| After a subsequent interview at Brooklyn Poly, I was hired, and life as a fully independent researcher began. |
| Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents. |
| My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill. |
| Life would be indeed easier if the experimentalists would only pause for a little while! |
| My interest in the sciences started with mathematics in the very beginning, and later with chemistry in early high school and the proverbial home chemistry set. |
| During my McGill years, I took a number of math courses, more than other students in chemistry. |
