My Early Childhood

From an early age, I was interested in science. I split my first atom at the age of two, with a kitchen knife, and quickly proceeded to build my first nuclear power plant in the garden (with some help from my grandfather, who didn't share my interest, but quite enjoyed the explosion). This experiment didn't work out as I had planned, and after only a couple of weeks I abandoned nuclear fission altogether.

The following week, I tried to build a fusion reactor in the basement, but my mother discovered it and made me dismantle it and promise not to play with anything requiring atoms to be in their plasma state until I was at least five. I was severely disappointed, and spent the rest of the day learning classical Greek and building a scale model of a Turing machine, with moving parts.

I got up early the following day and rebuilt my fusion reactor inside the kitchen oven. By the time my mother got up, I had already proceeded to cold fusion.

It caused some embarrasment when I declined to accept the Nobel Price in Physics, but I preferred to celebrate my third birthday at home.