For our immediate family and relatives, Canada was a land of opportunity.

Eight months later, having left Columbia, I was studying physics in a summer program and working in Colorado when I decided to enroll as a graduate student in biophysics.

For our immediate family and relatives, Canada was a land of opportunity.

About seven years later I was given a book about the periodic table of the elements. For the first time I saw the elegance of scientific theory and its predictive power.

My intention was to enroll at McGill University but an unexpected series of events led me to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I should mention that while I was growing up, Einstein was presented as a worthy role model for a young boy who was good at his studies.

I was born in Montreal in 1939, the second son of poor immigrants.