It was Neuberger who first taught me how to do research, both technically and as a way of life, and I owe much to him.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Influenced by him, and probably even more so by my brother Theodore (a year older than me), I soon became interested in biology and developed a respect for the importance of science and the scientific method.
My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer.
And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.
My father was a lawyer and to my best knowledge nobody in my family before had interest in science.
From an early age, I knew I would become a scientist. It may have been my brother Sam's doing. He interested me in the laws of falling bodies when I was ten and helped my father equip a basement chemistry lab for me when I was fifteen. I became skilled in the synthesis of selenium halides.
My father in his way influenced me and my sister to educate ourselves and to try to do things in life.
I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.
Pierre Curie came to see me and showed a simple and sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and he asked me to share that life.
He taught me literature, and he actually taught me how to read. He was my personal mentor.
It was at the graduate school at Columbia University that I first met Wesley C. Mitchell, with whom I was associated for many years at the National Bureau of Economic Research and to whom I owe a great intellectual debt.