I was born in Mount Vernon, New York, U.S.A. on May 5, 1921. My father had come from Europe a decade earlier. He left his home in Riga to study electrical engineering at Darmstadt, but arrived too late for the beginning of the term. Therefore, he went on to visit his brother in New York,…

Robert Sanderson Mulliken was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on June 7, 1896, the son of Samuel Parsons Mulliken, Professor of Organic Chemistry, and Katherine W. Mulliken. He married Mary Helen von Noè, December 24, 1929. Their children are Lucia Maria (Mrs. John P. Heard) and Valerie Noè. Mulliken took a B.Sc. Degree in 1917 at…

I was born February 20, 1937 in München as the first child of Sebastian and Helene Huber. My father was cashier at a bank and my mother kept the house and brought up the children, me and my younger sister, a difficult task during the war, a continuous struggle for some milk and bread and…

Translation from the French text In his memorable series “Etudes sur le temps humain”, Georges Poulet devoted one volume to the “Mesure de l’instant”. There he proposed a classification of authors according to the importance they give to the past, present and future. I believe that in such a typology my position would be an…

Albert von Szent-Györgyi was born in Budapest on September 16, 1893, the son of Nicolaus von Szent-Györgyi, a great landed proprietor and Josefine, whose father, Joseph Lenhossék, and brother Michael were both Professors of Anatomy in the University of Budapest. He matriculated in 1911 and entered his uncle’s laboratory where he studied until the outbreak…

I was born in Catanzaro, Italy, from a Calabrese mother and a Ligurian father. I stayed in that city for a short time; my father was called into the army (World War I) and we moved to the north, Cuneo and Torino. At the end of the war my father, who was in the “Genio…

I was born on Saturday June 27, 1931, in a town called Waalwijk in the south of the Netherlands. My father was the head of the local primary school. One brother and two sisters of my father were primary school teachers as well, and in my family learning was held in high regard. My mother…

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1916. My father, an electrical engineer, had come to the United States in 1903 after earning his engineering diploma at the Technische Hochschule of Darmstadt, Germany. He was an inventor and designer of electrical control gear, later also a patent attorney. An active leader in professional…

Gao Xingjian, born January 4, 1940 in Ganzhou (Jiangxi province) in eastern China, is today a French citizen. Writer of prose, translator, dramatist, director, critic and artist. Gao Xingjian grew up during the aftermath of the Japanese invasion, his father was a bank official and his mother an amateur actress who stimulated the young Gao’s…

My mother and father each came from simple country backgrounds, but both showed an early inclination for scholarly pursuits. They eventually met as school teachers in a local Panama City, Florida high school and were married in 1929. The following year, my father was appointed Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Florida at…