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I think that I got committed to physics at the age of - oh, it must have been 1942 - ten, when most countries were at war and children were interested in airplanes and bombs and such things.

I spent most of my career doing high-energy physics, quarks, dark matter, string theory and so on.

In 1948 I entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undecided between studies of chemistry and physics, but my first year convinced me that physics was more interesting to me.

In 1955, I got my degree in electrical-mechanical engineering. I realised, however, that my interest was less in practical applications than in the understanding of the underlying theoretical structure, and I decided to learn physics.

Soon after my degree, in 1958 I went to the United States to enlarge my experience and to familiarize myself with particle accelerators. I spent about one and a half years at Columbia University.

I was going to engineering school but fell in love with physics.

When I entered medical physics in 1958 there were fewer than 100 in the U.S. and I could see many opportunities to apply my knowledge of nuclear physics.

When I was 10 years old, that nuclear spark hit me. Whatever it may be, I really don't know what it was about nuclear science, but whatever it was that triggered that interest, it stuck. I went after that one with a passion.

My latter schooldays and my university days were during the war, when science - physics, in particular - was a very important and glamorous subject. A lot of us felt that if we couldn't get into science, we might try engineering or medicine.

I had a project for my life which involved 10 years of wandering, then some years of medical studies and, if any time was left, the great adventure of physics.