Q: What do elementary school pupils and Nobel Laureates have in common? A: They both have to write autobiographical essays on command. Ancestors and family My father, Hsue Chu Tsien (1915–1997), came from the “scholar-gentry” class in Hangzhou, China, where “Tsien” (now more commonly transliterated as Qian) is quite a common surname. Apparently in 907…

I was born on September 29, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, while my father, James Farley Cronin, was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He was a student of classical languages. My mother, Dorothy Watson, had met my father in a Greek class at Northwestern University. After a brief stay at a small school…

On the banks of the Nile, the Rosetta branch, I lived an enjoyable childhood in the City of Disuq, which is the home of the famous mosque, Sidi Ibrahim. I was born (February 26, 1946) in nearby Damanhur, the “City of Horus”, only 60 km from Alexandria. In retrospect, it is remarkable that my childhood…

I was born on September 4, 1962, in Osaka, Japan. My father, Shozaburo, ran a small factory in the city of Higashi-Osaka manufacturing components for sawing machines, which he took over in his early 20s after my grandfather passed away. Higashi-Osaka is well known for its cluster of highly skilled small and midsize manufacturers. Like…

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald…

Haldan Keffer Hartline was born in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, on December 22nd, 1903. His parents were teachers there in the State Normal School (now Bloomsburg State College) where he received his early education. His father, Daniel S. Hartline, was Professor of Biology, but a man whose wide interests also included Astronomy and Geology. It was through…

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students’ revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland…

I was the kid with the funny name in my form. That is one of the earliest memories I have of school (except for being forced to finish school dinners). Other kids had typical Lancashire names such as Chadderton, Entwistle, Fairhurst, Higginbottom, Mottershead and Thistlethwaite though I must admit that there were the odd Smith,…

I suppose I am not the first Nobelist who, on the occasion of receiving this Prize, wonders how on earth, by what strange alchemy of family background, teachers, friends, talents and especially accidents of history and of personal life he or she arrived at this point. I have browsed in previous volumes of “Les Prix…

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students’ revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland…