Canadian - Scientist | May 7, 1939 -
I spent eighteen months as a graduate student in physics at Columbia University, waiting unhappily for an opportunity to work in a laboratory and wondering if I should continue in physics.
Sidney Altman
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About seven years later I was given a book about the periodic table of the elements. For the first time I saw the elegance of scientific theory and its predictive power.
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The mystique associated with the bomb, the role that scientists played in it, and its general importance could not fail to impress even a six-year old.
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By the time I reached high school my father's grocery store had made our life adequately comfortable and I was able to choose, without any practical encumbrances, the subjects that I wanted to pursue in college.
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Eight months later, having left Columbia, I was studying physics in a summer program and working in Colorado when I decided to enroll as a graduate student in biophysics.
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I was born in Montreal in 1939, the second son of poor immigrants.
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It was from them that I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments.
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My intention was to enroll at McGill University but an unexpected series of events led me to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Furthermore, neither of our research groups set out in search of RNA catalysis.
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We are united in the hope that every individual will someday enjoy at least the intellectual privileges we have had, if not always the material advantages.
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The RNA World referred to an hypothetical stage in the origin of life on Earth.
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For our immediate family and relatives, Canada was a land of opportunity.
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