The questions worth asking, in other words, come not from other people but from nature, and are for the most part delicate things easily drowned out by the noise of everyday life.

At Berkeley I had my first encounter with real professional scientists.

I was an extremely reclusive and introverted boy.

I also taught myself how to blow glass using a propane torch from the hardware store and managed to make some elementary chemistry plumbing such as tees and small glass bulbs.

My childhood home backed onto wheat and cotton fields.

My mother also had us take piano lessons, and this had a similar effect. I hated those lessons, but I now play regularly for pleasure and have even tried my hand at composing.

To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble but just as often helps me see things my predecessors have missed.