I didn't really decide to become a physicist until I was about 23 years old, working as a research engineer at the RCA Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey. To understand my decision, you will need some background. Ever since I was a boy I was fascinated by the operation of machines. I liked to take them apart, and often I was even able to put them back together again. I used to make model airplanes and construct mechanical toys. Originally, I wanted to become a civil engineer and design complex mechanisms.
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As Herring wrote in his “Recollections” [
Proc. Roy. Soc. London
A371
, 67
(1980
)]: “After the war I became involved with other things and it was with surprise that I learned … in an encounter with Frank Herman at an APS meeting in New York, that he was trying to do a thesis at Columbia University on the electron band of diamond, using the OPW method. I followed his work with interest, as I began to think about possible band structures for the semiconductors, silicon and germanium” (page 69).6.
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© 1984 American Institute of Physics.
1984
American Institute of Physics
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