Never Lose Your Nerve!

288 Pages·2015·7.325 MB·English

by  Alan J Heeger

Never Lose
Your Nerve!
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Never Lose
Your Nerve!
Alan J. Heeger
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI • TOKYO
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Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
NEVER LOSE YOUR NERVE !
Copyright © 2016 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher.
For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy
is not required from the publisher.
ISBN 978-981-4704-85-4
ISBN 978-981-4704-86-1 (pbk)
Printed in Singapore
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Never Lose Your Nerve!
Alan J. Heeger
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This Book is dedicated to Ruth, who “has filled my life
with love and surrounded me with beauty” and made all
things that were impossible — possible.
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Prologue
Professor Heeger shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 2000
with his two colleagues, Hideki Shirakawa and Alan MacDiarmid, “for
the discovery and development of conducting polymers.” This book is
the story of his path from a small town in Iowa to receiving the Gold
Medal that is the symbol of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
It is not one story but a set of intertwined stories, parallel in time,
that describe a rich and complex life: a love story; a description of his
passion for science and the various stages from student to young Pro-
fessor to the award of the Nobel Prize; his love of and involvement with
the theater and how that involvement had direct impact on his science;
his adventures as an entrepreneur; and his love for and his impact on his
two sons, Peter and David. Throughout this quiltwork of love, passion
for science, entrepreneurship, theater and the award of the Nobel Prize,
he expresses a love of the mountains and of skiing, which he uses to
illustrate many of the signifi cant events of his life.
He tells us of a “miracle” that actually happened during his child-
hood.
The loss of his father when he was nine years old shaped his life and
forced him to accept his own mortality at this early age. Consequently,
his mother guided and pushed him toward advanced education all the
way to the award of the PhD degree in Physics from the University of
California at Berkeley.
His love for his wife, Ruth, provides the foundation for the entire
tale. “Ruth has fi lled my life with love and surrounded me with beauty.
Throughout the 64 years that we have been together, our love carried us
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