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At the age of 12, my parents gave me a chemistry set for Christmas, and experimentation soon became a consuming passion in my life.

I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents.

When I was in elementary school, I was very interested in science already. I must have been ten or eleven years old. I started experiments with chemistry sets at my home in Mexico. I was able to borrow a bathroom and convert it to a laboratory. My parents supported it. They were pleased. My friends just tolerated it.

I started doing experiments - mostly in organic chemistry, because it was so much more interesting - in my mother's laundry at home.

I wanted to understand the secrets behind my chemical experiments and behind the processes in nature.

I also became interested in chemistry and gradually accumulated enough test tubes and other glassware to do chemical experiments, using small quantities of chemicals purchased from a pharmacy supply house.

My parents, once I made it clear to them that I wanted to do science, they were totally sympathetic.

I dropped chemistry. I practically blew up the lab in college.

I was also interested in chemistry, but my parents were not willing to buy me a chemistry set.

I did not study science at school until I was 13, when I was totally turned on by a seemingly dreary old teacher who suddenly, unannounced, manufactured a huge explosion in the middle of a totally boring monologue. From then on, all of his class wanted to make explosions.