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Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Volume 40, 2002

A Generalist Looks Back

Abstract

▪  

I fled with my parents from Hitler's Austria to Australia and studied physics at Sydney University. I obtained my Ph.D. in quantum electrodynamics with Rudolf Peierls at Birmingham University and came to Cornell to work with Hans Bethe. I have stayed at Cornell ever since, and I have essentially had only a single job in my whole life, but have switched fields quite often. I worked in nuclear astrophysics and in late-stellar evolution, estimated the Initial Mass Function for star formation and the metal enrichment of the interstellar medium. I suggested black hole accretion as the energy source for quasars, worked on molecule formation on dust grain surfaces, and was involved in 21-cm studies of gas clouds and disk galaxies. I collaborated with my wife on the neurobiology of the neuromuscular junction and with one of my daughters on the epidemiology of tuberculosis.

Keyword(s): autobiography, epidemiology, interstellar medium, neurobiology, nuclear astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics
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2002-09-01
2025-04-19
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A Generalist Looks Back
Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 40, 1 (2002); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.astro.40.060401.093901
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.astro.40.060401.093901
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.astro.40.060401.093901
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