To try to become happy is to try to build a machine with no other specifications than it shall run noiselessly.
In the spring of 1929, I returned to the United States. I was homesick for this country. I had learned in my student days a great deal about the new physics. I wanted to pursue this myself, to explain it, and to foster its cultivation.
My life as a child did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.
The history of science is rich in example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate contexts for the pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another.
In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.
I was born in New York in 1904.
My mother was born in Baltimore, and before her marriage, she was an artist and teacher of art.
I saw what the Depression was doing to my students. Often they could get no jobs, or jobs which were wholly inadequate. And through them, I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect men's lives. I began to feel the need to participate more fully in the life of the community.
In the spring of 1936, I was introduced by friends to Jean Tatlock. In the autumn, I began to court her. We were at least twice close enough to marriage to think of ourselves as engaged.
I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.
I never accepted Communist dogma or theory.
