From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.

Our children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.

I have had many opportunities to visit universities all over the world in the past 50 years.

I was a close observer of the developments in molecular biology.

From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.

In the war, most young men were inducted into the armed forces at the age of 17. A group of students was permitted to attend university before taking part in wartime research projects.

On my return to Pittsburgh, I resolved to go back to the fundamental problems of electronic structure that I had contemplated abstractly many years earlier.