The postdoc explained to me how to distinguish different sorts of particles on the basis of the amounts of energy they deposited in various sorts of detectors, spark chambers, calorimeters, what have you.

My fellow students there were very smart, but the really novel thing was that they actually seemed to put a lot of effort into their school work. By the end of my first semester there, I began to get into that habit as well.

Most of my teachers probably found I made less trouble if they let me read.

Keep everything in perspective if you wish to be happy. For example... Losing an arm is more an inconvenience than a catastrophe. Things could be a lot worse so why not be grateful they aren't and thereby happy rather than sad?

The 1970s, the decade of my teenage years, was a transitional period in American youth culture.

My freshman year of high school I joined the chess and math clubs.

The postdoc explained to me how to distinguish different sorts of particles on the basis of the amounts of energy they deposited in various sorts of detectors, spark chambers, calorimeters, what have you.