I was going to engineering school but fell in love with physics.
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
During the war years I worked on the development of radar and other radio systems for the R.A.F. and, though gaining much in engineering experience and in understanding people, rapidly forgot most of the physics I had learned.
When I got started in my own engineering course, my interest in physics and maths was very high. After all, engineering is all about applied maths and physics. If I were to learn anything further in physics or mathematics, it simply was not there.
Medical physics is an applied area of physics.
I have applied to go to either Durham or Loughborough University to study Applied Physics and would like to get some qualification behind me. But when I do think about becoming professional Essex would be my first choice as I have been very happy playing and practising with them.
Nevertheless, if I have at times been able to make original contributions in the accelerator field, I cannot help feeling that to a certain extent my slightly amateur approach in physics, combined with much practical experience, was an asset.
My first job out of school was to do basic research at Johns Hopkins University's applied physics lab.
The development of physics, like the development of any science, is a continuous one.
That attitude does not exist so much today, but in those days there was a very sharp distinction between basic physics and applied physics. Columbia did not deal with applied physics.
I joined the Army and was sent to the MIT radiation laboratory after a few months of introduction to electromagnetic wave theory in a special course, given for Army personnel at the University of Chicago.
