I came to a happy Jewish family in dark days in Europe.

I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.

Our part of Poland was under Russian occupation from 1939-1941.

I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.

One day I discovered that one could get the barrier to internal rotation in ethane approximately right using this method. This was the beginning of my work on organic molecules.