Autobiography
Page 3

My interest in Science had many roots. Some came from my mother as she finished her B.A. Degree studies in college while I was in my early teens. She fell in love with science, particularly as a result of classes on the Foundations of Physical Science taught by a magnificent mathematics professor at the University of Kansas City, Dr. Norman N. Royall, Jr. I was infected by this professor second hand, through hundreds of hours of conversations at my mother’s knees. It was from my mother that I first learned of Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Darwin. We spent hours together collecting single-celled organisms from a local pond and watching them with a microscope she had received as a gift from my father. Mostly we talked and read together. From her I learned the wonder of ideas and the beauty of Nature (and music, painting, sculpture, and architecture). From my father I learned to build things, to take them apart, and to fix mechanical and electrical equipment in general. I spent vast hours in a woodworking shop he maintained in the basement of our house, building gadgets, working both with my father and alone, often late into the night. My mother taught me mechanical drawing so that I could be more systematic in my design work, and I continued in drafting classes throughout my 4 years in high school. This play with building, fixing, and designing was my favorite activity throughout my childhood, and was a wonderful preparation for my later career as an experimentalist working on the frontiers of chemistry and physics.