Dances with physicists

Rarely have I been so moved to think about and examine my own curious career path as I was after reading “The Entangled Dance of Physics.” Until then, I had considered myself to be a failed physicist.

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1978. Through the middle of my sophomore year, my education was an uphill struggle. Then that summer it was as if a switch had been thrown and suddenly it all became clear. For the rest of my time in college, I was like a kid with unlimited funds in the candy store of physics. The sheer elegance of the science was breathtaking.

I had intended to go on to get a doctorate. I was not brilliant, but I was competent and did extremely well on the Graduate Record Exams. However, one day fate sent to the campus a US Navy recruiter who insisted on paying for my drinks at the campus pub. One thing led to another and I became a naval officer in submarines for the next six years. After that, a family, children, and the need for a steady job led me to a commercial nuclear power plant not too far from New York City, where I have been ever since.

I have done many things in nuclear power, and for the past few years I’ve been an instructor, teaching those who manipulate the controls how and why the plants work as they do. A necessary and important job, but not the one I trained for so long ago. I have regretted that diversion from physics for nearly 30 years. Benka’s article, though, made me reexamine things in a different light. I am in fact still a physicist, but simply in another application. For just an instant as I read the article, I was once more a kid in the candy store, surrounded by the elegance and breathtaking beauty of physics. Thank you for that moment.