In August 1948 when I had just turned 20, I followed my husband to Cornell University and entered the small (two faculty) astronomy department as a candidate for a master’s degree. Bob was completing his PhD studies under Peter Debye at Cornell, so I opted to finish at the same time as he would. Although I was determined to later get a PhD degree in astronomy, most of my classes at Cornell were in physics. I had the unforgettable experience of studying under three remarkable scientists, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, and Philip Morrison.
Phil Morrison became a friend of three generations of Rubins, and Bethe and I would talk at scientific meetings, but I never interacted with Feynman after June 1950, when he left Cornell for Caltech, just one week before my master’s oral exam. He was then the physicist scheduled to participate in my orals. However, Feynman’s influence on...
