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After graduating from U. City High in 1957, I enrolled at Washington University intending to major in Electrical Engineering, but soon switched to Engineering Physics with its stronger emphasis on math and science. I remember taking a fascinating elective course in my junior year on Greek Mythology and Poetry, and by my senior year being really captured by studies in physics. Following my B.S. in 1961, I decided on graduate school in physics and was accepted at Cornell University, situated in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York State. This location so enchanted me, that when acceptance to Stanford came 3 weeks later, I already knew that I was headed East. One of life's Forks in the Road. I completed my Ph.D. in Solid State Physics at Cornell in 1966, studying under a young German-born professor, Herbert Mahr. He had many research connections at Frankfurt University in Germany, and the idea of doing a post-doctoral assistantship there captured my interest. When I told my parents of my plans, they were extremely apprehensive of how I, as a Jew, could possibly want to go. But our family had not suffered personally in the war, and I wanted to find out for myself what postwar Germany and its people were like. It was in fact an exciting year in Frankfurt in which I became acculturated, learned to speak the language, and had a chance as well to visit and observe life in East Germany under the Communist regime. Soon to be seen as another of life's Forks in the Road. |