I’m actually really impressed
that I understood this at one point.
Pages like that…
So this is my PhD thesis which was submitted in 1974
to receive the PhD in Chemistry from Yale University,
based on the work I did there as a graduate student
when I was mostly interested in quantum mechanics.
My lab – it was basically a desk
– it was in the basement of the Kline Chemistry building.
There were no windows.
The rest of the people in the group were doing experiments
with molecular beam machines;
I was the theoretician
and a lot of what I did was pencil and paper.
But then, once I got to the point
where I thought I had a pretty good model,
I wanted to calculate exactly what would happen
if you did this experiment,
and could I even see whether I could make a prediction
that could be experimentally verified.
So that meant writing programs.
I would have to run them at night,
any time after 1am when the price went down
because my advisor said he could not afford to pay
for too many computer charges.
So I became a bit of a night owl;
it was a little lonely at times.
Being there late at night, which I often was,
I would interact with other graduate students
who kept a night schedule,
and there were plenty of them.
And one in particular who was just one floor above me,
Jay, was working in a lab of a nucleic acid chemistry professor.
We would take a break at 2am
and I would tell him what I was doing right then
and he would look at me like, ‘okay, whatever.’
And then he would tell me what he was doing
and this was right at the point
when recombinant DNA was being invented
(the idea that you could splice pieces of DNA
and put together new structures that might be interesting
for understanding how life works).
And I was astounded that actually,
I had missed this whole thing about biology.
I couldn’t believe I came all the way
to being a second year graduate student in Chemistry
without realising that life made sense.
It always seemed to me that it didn’t make sense;
it was just this muddy stuff.
And it was a revelation.
I wanted to contribute.
I wanted to have some insight,
to feel like my involvement in science had meant something.
I wasn’t sure I was going to be in a place
to make that claim very strongly in the path I was on.
I wanted to really open up every possible horizon
and somehow medical school seemed like the way to do that.
I was only at Yale for three years.
I got there in September of 1970
and I was starting medical school in September of 1973.
I convinced my thesis committee
that I had done enough work to qualify for the PhD
and they said, ‘okay you need to go and write.’
In the summer of ’73 I was sort of homeless
because I sent my wife and daughter on to North Carolina
and I basically moved in with a guy nextdoor
who happened to be a Yale professor,
who was willing to let me stay in his house.
And I tried to start writing.
But it was pretty chaotic.
Did it really add significantly
to the knowledge that the universe contains? Well…
It would be a rather small contribution, to be sure.
I think the greatest beneficiary of my PhD
was not the universe
– it was probably me.
It’s not about learning techniques.
I didn’t learn any techniques in my PhD that I’ve ever used since.
It’s about a way of thinking,
about a way of approaching a problem,
and that’s essential.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be in the framework of a PhD,
but you need to have that time somewhere along the way.
If you’re going to study something,
study something important.
It might be risky, it might be hard, it might not work…
there’ll be plenty of time to take the bread and butter experiments in stride,
but don’t use that PhD experience in that way.
I think anybody who’s listening to this now
and thinking about their own career,
if they think they’re on a linear pathway, well think again.
Almost nobody is going to be – especially now.
So be prepared for that.
I’m not sure I was prepared for that
but I forced myself into that space
and I will always be glad I did.
