From the evolutionary gene change to my childhood story

After reading the article about the genes regulating metabolism, Janice wrote, “Now that food is abundant, we’d have to override those formerly rational evolutionary impulses and tell ourselves not to eat all available food.  So restricting our diets is rational and irrational.”  I think she got my points.

We often lament how difficult it is to shed a pound or two, some, pointing to food, even said, “I put on 2 pounds just look at it!”  Each gene may have several alleles all with same function but some variation.  The process of burning glucose to yield energy (ATP) is quite complex with numerous steps, thereby involving many enzymes and genes.  Let me take you back to millions of years ago when cave was still our home.  Let assume there were 4 sets of alleles in the gene pools, each set of alleles (of genes) produces enzymes with different proficiency—judged by how many ATP produced upon burning of one molecule glucose.

Those with alleles 1 will have to burn twice as much glucose to yield the same amount of energy as those with allele 4.  Natural selection is about the ‘survival of the fittest,’ when food was scarce; the allele 4 is the fittest; and they survive to reproduce.

During my talk at Bible Class, I used an example comparing mom and me with those living in the cave.  There are two persons and 4 refrigerators / freezers in this house, not counting the small refrigerator.  Provided there is a big storm, we can survive for months without leaving the house, those living in the cave wouldn’t be so lucky; and only those evolved efficient and proficient genes survived over the eons.

Millions of people are still starving around the world. So the genes we developed over the long evolutionary history to make the storage of energy expedient and efficient and the expenditure of it economical are still favorable to them or even to me.  Let me tell my childhood story.

I really do not have to go far to use the un-developed or war-torn countries as an example.  I can simply use my own childhood story (This is something Jo wanted me to write; this was when I grew up in that village that Jo and Sean once visited. Janice and Joy never had the good fortune to do so.)  I vividly recall that all children in every household were excited for a feast, which is defined as ‘having a chicken on the table' on certain religious days; anticipation was on the air.  In those days all meats (pork or poultry) were so scarce and expensive; having meats on the table often signifies special occasions.  On special religious days all these ‘sacrifices’ had to be dedicated to Buddha or many generations of ancestors before we could enjoy it.

The eldest son of my eldest sister is only 5-6 years my junior and we all lived in that village and my sister’s family might join us for the ‘feast.’  Unfortunately a chicken only has two legs, so my mother often had to hide at least one leg for me and one for my younger brother, lest my sister’s son, Ming Hong, grabbed it.  My sister told this story saying how much my mother loved me!  And she didn't have the luxury to show her affection to her own son!

You can never imagine that there was much more love than protein in that little chicken leg.  Chickens were also lean and mean without much food available in those days

Houston, we've had a problem!

Swigert: 'Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.'
Duke: 'This is Houston. Say again please.' 

NASA would rather this is from astronaut Swigert of Apollo 13 moon flight.  They probably can handle it better.

The Space Shuttle lift off and landing has become such a routine that has attracted few TV viewers.  Hopefully this will spur the renewed interest to NASA.

Jo wanted to know more about this astronauts love triangle--just turn on TV or fire up your internet search engine, you can always find something that suits your taste.  People can never have enough of this stuff--shall we call it 'Right stuff'?  My imaginary People in Science would say space engineering as well.

Lisa Marie Nowak and Bill Oefelein were trained together; the heavy burden of love still can be felt in that weightless chamber.  This proves my theory that love defies gravity and all the logics and rationale that we come to know.  Nowak may be able to do two variable calculus, but she miscalculates this simple math.

Jay Leno showed a 'newly released' Astronaut Huggies diapers--I am afraid this may be what Ben will ask for.

People in Science--Who says science has to be boring?

After writing that molecular biology and quantum mechanics stuff, I know I need to be in a ‘damage control’ mode to write something to ‘soften’ the image of my blog, or to create a so-called ‘well balanced’ blog, so to speak.

I no longer need to look for People to keep track on what Lindsay (see photo), Paris, or Britney (add Nicole, if you will) are up to. They seem to be everywhere doing nothing.  Growing up I read the story of ‘Emperor wears no clothes’, growing old, I heard ‘Britney wears no underwear.’ a new fashion, I guess!  No wonder they say you learn something everyday.  If Ronald Reagan were around, he would tell me, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

These ‘Girls Gone Wild” graces the cover of the Feb. 12, 2007 issue of Newsweek.  Over the years, Newsweek has an educational program for ‘classroom subscription,’ hopefully this issue will spur its growth.

Janice once wrote, “What was Beethon thinking when he wrote his ‘Sonata Pathẻtique?”  With the same curiosity I read about scientists and their science; in a way to ‘humanize’ the science.  And this is why I say there is a niche market for a monthly magazine of People in Science, focusing on the human aspect of the science—covering the scientists or researchers in science of the past and present.

I am not alone when I said James Watson (see photo) would be a good contributor, in fact, I’ll let him write a monthly column on my imaginary magazine, title of which is still under consideration (imagination); “Straight talk from Honest Jim” is an vital option.

Salvador Luria (shared Nobel Prize with Max Delbruck and Alfred Hershey in 1969 for studying genetics, using bacteriophage as model organism) recruited Phillip Sharp (Nobel Prize 1993 for ‘split gene’) to MIT’s Center of Cancer Research in 1974.  Watson was Sharp’s mentor while at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.  Writing in tribute to Watson, Sharp once wrote,

“Talking with Jim was fun.  He would inject an interesting tidbit about the history of molecular biology and gossip about a colleague’s romantic interests or cultural pursuits, subjects that added color to the day-to-day conversations. . . Jim would suddenly appear at the door of my office at about 10PM, and asked me about the results, . . .”

I have said many times about Watson’s report of the affair between John Kendrew’s (Nobel Prize for myoglobin structure) wife and Hugh Huxley (sliding model of muscle contraction).  Watson has a way to describe the agony in and out of the Lab, including ‘the kiss in the garden’ scene.  Who says science has to be boring?

And this would be what the magazine (People in Science) is all about.  I would say enough real stuff (science) to persuade the more serious professors or high school science teachers to take the advantage of the  ‘classroom subscription.’  (You see I already have a ‘business plan.’) and the Newsweek cover will be an inspiration to me.

Another Nobel laureate I would recruit to contribute is Kary Mullis (see photo).  He was working at Cetus when he invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)—for which Cetus would get $300 million from Hoffmann-La Roche.  He had problems dealing with the company ‘safety officer’ (he called him ‘danger officer’); once the safety officer hired a beautiful young woman as his assistant, hoping she might be able to handle Mullis, who wrote, “Instead, I invited her home for dinner, and several months later she moved in with me.”  and “One afternoon a man who thought he was her boyfriend kicked open my door and started threatening me.  That was the only time in my life that I worried about my safety in a laboratory.”

Mullis was also involved in the O.J. Simpson trial; he described his encounter with O.J.

“The first thing O.J. asked me about was my refrigerator.  An article about me in Esquire had included a photograph of my kitchen.  On my refrigerator were pictures I had taken of several women who had passed through my life, some of them without clothes.  O.J. asked me about the woman who graced the upper right-hand corner. 'She's gotten married,' I told him.  He offered his condolences.”

Janice's molecular biology professor, Richard Losick, whose lecture note is the most intellectual of this sort.  Janice told me some years later that he received $1 million teaching grant.  And even Professor Losick gossiped about Kary Mullis in the classroom.  Based on Janice's hand written note about this, I took comfort in that Janice listened in classroom attentively and wrote note dilligently.

This 'playboy' Nobel laureate really earns his name and reputation.  I have honored him with my 'Flamboyant Flame', one of the best sellers among my intellectual colognes.  The profits of which will help launch People in Science.

Boring Scientists

I am going to be a victim of my own success; with the debut of ‘Irresistible Ben’ (my grandson, not the Big Ben) on my blog, it might attract more people to the site.  And that will be all they want to read ignoring the ‘real stuff’ on the blog.  I am more of a self-effacing guy than of a self-aggrandizing one, but, when talking about Ben, I can not but talk like a bragging blogger.

I plan to move the ‘Irresistible Ben’ to the bottom of the page, and Jo already warned me that will change nothing, as one can always fast scroll down to it.

I am fully aware that few people will be intrigued by the likes of Dirac, Feynman, or Glauber. I always bought those yearly The Best American Science Writing books in the bargain books section. Janice, I got another one at Harvard Square when we last visited you.

In Political Scientist (a profile of Harold Varmus in the June 7, 1999 issue of The New Yorker), the author lamented how Harvard Crimson was full of mockery abut this nobody who had been invited to give the Commencement Address (1996), Dr. Varmus began the Address by repeating some of the responses reported on the Crimson: “Who is he?” “Wow, that’s boring.  Everyone got someone exciting.” and he said “Editorials criticized the process by which 'Dr. Who' was selected.  I was featured in entertaining cartoons, something that hasn’t happened during three years in Washington [He was appointed as the Director of NIH by then President Clinton in 1993.  He is now the president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.]  I may never be this famous again.”

Harold Varmus was actually on the list of my Cultivated Renaissance Men in Science list (more to come about this Nobel laureate).  And if this could happen in the intellectual Harvard, then it is no surprise that my writing of those ‘boring’ scientists will interest few, if any.  Recruiting Irresistible Ben is my desperate attempt to keep the traffic flowing. 

Intellectual Colognes

Cologne is nonessential in my life; never feel any need of it.  I was never attracted to it until now.

Inspired by New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter’s cologne, Driven, Steve Mirsky wrote a humor column in the November 2006 issue of Scientific American with a title of Uncommon Scents.  He makes up 18 colognes, each honoring or ‘exploiting’ a scientist.  I’ll mention a few here and say a few things to make it more educational; so you would have fun while learning something.  The aim of my blogging is to educate, enlighten and entertain, after all.

I wonder how Avon would market Driven in the Red Sox Nation? Big Poppi and Manny Ramirez, lovable though they may be, probably not fit to sell cologne.  I think the best answer from Boston to the New York Yankees' Jeter would be Patriots’ Tom Brady.

Alessandro Volta’s Charge   (Charge is the name of the cologne to be marketed)

Ingredients:  Cat hair, amber, balloons.

Slogan:  Make sparks fly.

Volt (unit of electric potential) and voltage derives from him.  If your name became a unit of scientific measurement or a constant, you are a scientific great or a Nobel laureate.  But, Volta (1745-1827) was in pre-Nobel era.  His Voltaic pile is the forerunner of modern battery.  He used copper (or silver) and zinc (this is what we learn in high school chemistry—electrochemical cell) to produce electrons (of course, we have to wait another 100 years or so to learn that it was electrons flowing that does the trick)

My slogan to sell Alessandro Volta’s Charge  would be “When 陰 (Yin) and  陽 (Yang) meet, let it spark!”

陰 (Yin) is female or negatively charged, and  陽 (Yang) is male or positively charged.

Antoine Lavoisier’s Chemistry

Ingredients: Hydrogen, oxygen.

Slogan:  When the elements come together, you may lose your head.

Lavoisier’s Elements of Chemistry (included in the Britannica Great Books) is very modern; no wonder he is touted as the Father of Modern Chemistry.  Many concepts are credited to him:  hydrogen combines with oxygen yields water, Laws of Conservation of Mass, diamond is the crystalline form of carbon, and role of oxygen plays in combustion.  Lavoisier (1743-1794) was beheaded during the French Revolution.  When he was sentenced to death, he requested time to complete some scientific work, the presiding judge was said to have answered “The Republic has no need of scientists.”  This judge symbolizes the collective French National Disgrace and Shame.

The slogan of ‘you may lose your head’ was twisted into somewhat different meaning that is fitting for selling cologne.

J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Cataclysm

Ingredients:  Desert sand, enriched geranium.

Slogan:  Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, but with a delicate floral hint.

I read Oppei’s biography: American Prometheus this past summer.  On his reflection of seeing the mushroom clouds rising from the first test explosion of atomic bomb (code name Trinity), he wrote, quoting from the Hindu sacred Scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One." and “I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds."

My campaign slogan for Cataclysm  would be: Let this American Prometheus steal fire and passion to stir your static mind, so when the moment is right, you will be ready!  (I must have watched too much Cialis TV commercial)

The following colognes are my own invention.

Kary Mullis’ Flamboyant Flame

Mullis’ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is simplistically beautiful, matching that of DNA structure—the best tool we ever had in propelling the genetic science to the one as we come to know today.  I am still trying to understand this flamboyant ‘playboy’ Nobel laureate (1993, Chemistry)

My slogan to sell Flamboyant Flame:  Get out of Lab, play the game, not necessarily by the rule, be uninhibited and outrageous, explore the world, get a life, be all you can be.

Hwang Woo Suk's Blind Ambition or Cheating Heart

When the South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk announced his creation of many new lines of embryonic stem cells last year, critics claimed the American counterparts had fallen behind because of President George Bush's stem cell policy.  Then the superstar scientist fell like a rock after his fraudulent scheme was exposed.

Shortly after the Blind Ambition or Cheating Heart was launched, it was discovered all the ingredients are fake, so the product was quickly pulled out of shelf and its marketing slogan was deleted from this page

Cultivated Renaissance Men in Science: Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer's greatest gift is his intellect, quick mind, and capacity to understand things esoteric; he spreaded the 'gospel' of quantum mechanics in the States after he returned from Europe.  Oppie was a “cultivated scholar, a linguist of eight tongues.”  He read Marcel Proust in French, Dante in Italian, and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in German.  He studied Greek and Latin before going to Harvard in 1922, and where he read the entire 3000 pages of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.  (The New York Times wrote in his obituary that he read it on a train trip from California to the East Coast.)  He gave a lecture in Dutch six weeks after arriving Netherlands to study with Ehrenfest.

On his reflection of seeing the mushroom clouds rising from the first test explosion of atomic bomb, he wrote, quoting from the Hindu sacred Scripture, "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One." and “I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds."

Cultivated Renaissance Men in Science: Roy Glauber

Richard Feynman, the ‘Genius’ (the title of his biography by James Gleick) was thrilled when he learned that the Descriptive Astronomy can be considered a required humanity course at MIT.  He couldn’t enjoy reading anything other than math or sciences.  “He tried to read Goethe’s Faust and felt he could make no sense of it.”

Not all scientists are alike; the following is from the Banquet Speech by Roy Glauber (see photo – one of the three Nobel laureates in Physics in 2005, still teaching at Harvard at age of 81) If there are two or three recipients, the Banquet Speech is usually presented by the elder, the more seasoned one.  He also mentioned A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“These dark days in emphasize the importance of light in our lives. It is equally important in our literature. The word, 'light', has vastly many meanings. Shakespeare, in Love's Labours Lost, has one of his cleverer characters make fun of that by speaking the line, 'Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile ...'  Loosely translated, that means: Intellect, seeking understanding, easily fools reason. - Or perhaps it's the other way around.”

The following is how he ended his Nobel Lecture:

Einstein at Princeton in 1951--by Roy Glauber

“I’d like, as a final note, to share with you an experience I had in 1951, while I was a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Possessed by the habit of working late at night – in fact on photon statistics13 at the time – I didn’t often appear at my Institute desk early in the day. Occasionally I walked out to the Institute around noon, and that was closer to the end of the work day for Professor Einstein. Our paths thus crossed quite a few times, and on one of those occasions I had ventured to bring my camera.  He seemed more than willing to let me take his picture as if acknowledging his role as a local landmark, and he stood for me just as rigidly still. Here, [Left Figure], is the hitherto unpublished result. I shall always treasure that image, and harbor the enduring wish I had been able to ask him just a few questions about that remarkable year, 1905.”

Glauber’s Nobel Lecture gives a good summary of the birth of quantum mechanics—during 1924-26 when Louis de Broglie, Heisenberg and Schrodinger were working on the atoms. But, Glauber makes it clear that it was Dec. 14, 1900 when Max Planck announced his revolutionary idea that energy emitted by a resonator could only take a discrete value (quanta, hence quantum mechanics) that separates the classical physics and quantum mechanics.  Based on Planck’s concept, Einstein proposed in 1905 that light is also quantized—his photoelectric effect earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 (his more famous E = mc² never got him a Nobel), and Planck was so honored in 1918.

Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria seated between the Nobel Laureates in Physics

While watching Glauber’s Nobel Lecture video, I lost him when he came to his work; my limited math (calculus) background deprives me of so much joy.  In summer reading_6/2004, I wrote I struggled for many years trying to better understand quantum mechanics and eventually gave it up when I couldn’t fully understand Schrodinger’s wave function equation.  I have come to realize that without higher level calculus, I can’t ever grasp the concept.  And Dirac’s equation of electrodynamics is the extension of Schrodinger’s and Feynman’s Dirac’s.  The point I try to make is that without a good foundation of math (calculus), one can not do physics.

 

Writing about Glauber’s Nobel Prize in fall reflection_10/8/2005, I wrote, “Let there be light: and there was light.”  I am pleased to note that on Dec. 8, 2005 when he gave the Nobel Lecture, he also began with something like this:  Our good Lord said, “Let there be quantum electrodynamics.” . . . that was the modern translation of the Hebrew.  We quote the same Scripture, but he said it in a more poetic, aesthetic, subtle and dynamic way, no doubt.
(photo comes from nobelprize.org site)

In Celebration of the Great Life of Dr. Daniel Paul Greenlee

(This was written on March 6, 2005 when Dr. Greenlee passed away. In a post of “Pittsburgh” by Dr. Cheng-Hung Lin, he showed the picture of Cathedral of Learning and mentioned the graduation today; a day like this I always think about Dr. Greenlee.

Dr. and Mrs. Greenlee are our “American parents”; Dr. Greenlee passed away at age of 102 five years ago and Mrs. Greenlee is now in her 90s. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Greenlee went to Mayo Clinic for surgical training in early 1920s. He helped fund-raising to build the Cathedral of Learning. Their grandson, Dr. Adam Greenlee, graduated from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine today. Congratulations!)

In searching for my final tribute to Dr. Greenlee, I came across what Homer Koch of Kansas spoke of Lincoln in the House of Representatives February 12, 1923. A towering figure Dr. Greenlee was, this fits him well.

 

 

“There is no new thing to be said about Dr. Greenlee. There is no new thing to be said of the mountains, or of the sea, or of the stars. The years go their way, but the same old mountains lift their granite shoulders above the drifting clouds; the same mysterious sea beats upon the shore; the same silent stars keep holy vigil above a tired world. But to the mountains and sea and stars men turn forever in unwearied homage. And thus with Dr. Greenlee. For he was a mountain in grandeur of soul, he was a sea in deep undervoice of mystic loneliness, he was a star in steadfast purity of purpose and service. And he abides.”

When I said of all the people that I came to personally know, Dr. Greenlee was the one I respected the most; Josephine said regardless how great or how respectable he was, he will always be her loving Grandpa Greenlee. Janice most remembers learning patience and steady work from working in the garden with him as well as the simple pleasures of watching baseball and football games on TV.

Every one he touched was blessed; everyone he cut (as far as his profession goes) was blessed. A surgeon trained at Mayo Clinic in 1920s at the time when the Mayo Brothers were still operating and when the great surgeons in the nation were produced at the legendary pioneering institution. And yet he practiced medicine following what Dr. William Osler said about the character of a good doctor: availability, affability, and ability, and in that order.

We learn his humility in his daily life, and his humanity from the trips to the farm we took with him. His love, devotion and tender care extended beyond his families and patients to all the ‘children’ in the farm.

When we first had the good fortune to be his neighbor in 1976, we visited the Agway store. Knowing we were the newcomers in town, the owner asked us where we lived. I replied that we live next to Dr. Greenlee. And much to my surprise that the owner said, “I know him, he is a good farmer!” That was the beginning that we learn medicine was not the only profession he had.

II Timothy 4:7

Apostle Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

No doubt we have heard our dear Paul said the same thing justifiably.

II Timothy 4:8

“In the future there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

We now know where Dr. Greenlee is, and we’re assured that he will continue to touch us, to bless us, and will ‘reserve’ a seat for us, and we shall meet again.

And above all, we all know he was and will always be the Number One of the Audrey [Mrs. Greenlee] Fan Club.

A dinner with a Nobel laureate, Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲教授) in 2004

Professor Yuan Tseh Lee

On October 26, 2004, members of the Taiwanese American Association (TAA), Pittsburgh Chapter, had a very pleasant and congenial dinner with a Nobel laureate, Professor Yuan Tseh Lee (李遠哲教授). After being informed by Professor Fu Tyan Lin (林富田教授) that Dr. Lee was coming to University of Pittsburgh, and with the help of Mrs. J.Y. Tzeng (鄭如玉, a family friend of Dr. Lee), Katy (then TAA, Pittsburgh Chapter president) organized the dinner at LeMonte Restaurant, Pittsburgh.

Inspired by Madame Curie, Dr. Lee wanted to be a scientist at a young age. His excellent academic foundation was built at the National Taiwan University and the National Tsinghua University. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, Dr. Lee joined Professor Dudley Herschbach (at Harvard—Janice’s freshman chemistry professor) for post-doc research in 1967. They shared the 1986 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry with Professor Polanyi for ‘reaction dynamics’—a new field they helped to create in 1960s and 1970s.

To create a new field in science per se is an extraordinary accomplishment. It is next to impossible to describe in this writing what Professor Lee did to be worthy for a Nobel Prize. But, I’ll give it a try.

I like to say that in the end all chemical reactions are physical. “A chemical reaction is fundamentally a mechanical event, involving the rearrangement of atoms and molecules during a collision.” (from Dr. Lee’s Nobel Lecture) Professor Herschbach pioneered the crossed molecular beam to study what happens to the two atoms the ‘moment’ (a time span of the order of a millionth of a millionth of a second) when they collide. With this technique they were able to ‘visualize’ the detail traveling paths of the colliding atoms during a chemical reaction.

You just have to trust them how they can ‘see’ it, using the quantum mechanical calculation of the angular and velocity distribution. i.e. measuring the direction, velocity, and potential energy, etc. one can locate the new position of the product. (Skip this paragraph if you must)

Katy and Professor Yuan Tseh Lee

Dr. Lee carried this technique to a higher level so that chemical reaction dynamics of a large, complex molecule can be studied. Being a physical chemist, he worked at two departments while at Harvard. After spending $80,000 (in 1967 dollars) in 10 months, using the money Dr. Herschbach borrowed from the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Lee built a ‘supermachine’ incorporating mass spectroscopy to the crossed molecular beam machine, thus taking Herschbach’s research of the chemical reaction dynamics to ‘beyond the alkali age.’

Despite much confidence in Lee during the course of machine construction, much concern and worry was expressed about this unprecedented endeavor of building the supermachine. At one point Herschbach said, “Yuan, if this machine doesn’t work, you have to shovel the snow in Harvard Yard for five years to pay back the money I borrowed.” Dr. Lee said of Herschbach in his Nobel Lecture,

“In February of 1967, I joined Dudley Herschbach’s group at Harvard as a post-doctoral fellow. There, I was exposed to the excitement of the crossed molecular beams research and participated in the construction of an universal crossed molecular beams apparatus. Dudley’s contagious enthusiasm and spectacular insight motivated not only me, but a whole generation of chemical dynamicists.”

Jer-Yuan Tsai, Professor Yuan-Tseh Lee and Katy Tsai

Lee’s late father was a fine artist. Katy asked him about the famous Niagara Fall painting. Dr. Lee said when he was at Harvard, his parents came to the States for a visit, and he took them to Niagara Falls. His father took lots of pictures and did that painting when he returned to Taiwan.

Lee also reminisced his childhood days when he wanted to learn painting from his father, who discouraged him or any of his seven siblings to take up painting, as his father said, “A poor artist can’t even make a living.” Thanks to his father insight, we have a super scientist furthers our basic science research to a higher level. His mother was a kindergarten teacher and Dr. Lee said he had the best teacher from the very beginning.

Among his numerous prestigious awards are National Medal of Science, Peter Debye Award and Nobel Prize, all in 1986. When Lee received the Nobel Prize, Dudley R. Herschbach described him as "The Mozart of physical chemistry...not only because Dr. Lee was a prodigy but also because in the laboratory he has 'a precise touch.'" (by James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius—Richard Feynman’s biography).

In my baseball posts I have mentioned how Herschbach and Lee boasted and claimed the credits of the championships of their baseball teams. When he came to Pittsburgh for two lectures in October 2004, the Red Sox - Cardinals World Series was going on, and I have no doubt about it that the Red Sox finally broke the Curse only because Dr. Lee returned to the States then. During his lectures at Pittsburgh Dr. Lee claimed the credits that Red Sox went to the World Series in 1967 when he went to Harvard and Oakland Athletics won the World Series champion in 1974 when he returned to Berkeley.

Dr. Lee has been the President of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan since 1994. There is a 22-minute interview of Dr. Lee that took place during the 55th Nobel laureates meeting in June 2005. Listening to the interview, one may gain further insight about this extraordinary Taiwanese Nobel laureate.

Prof Lee, Katy and Jer-Yuan