The misadventures of a NAFTA Scientist: physics and phun in Canada, the United States, and Mexico

摘要

These memoirs were written with the encouragement of Farid Abraham. In October 1994 Luis Mier y Teran and Orest Pizio organized a conference at the Physics Department of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Iztapalapa campus) and the Institute of Chemistry of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico on the occasion of my sixtieth birthday. I had entertained Farid and John Barker at lunch for years with stories of my youth. He asked me to write up some of these stories for him to read at the beginning of the first day. This is the result. I am grateful for the conference and this issue in commemoration of my birthday. I enjoyed the talks and articles, both personally and professionally. For me at least, science is both intellectually stimulating and an opportunity to make many good friends with whom I enjoy interacting. Some of these friends have participated in the conference or contributed to the issue or both. Many more would have done so if they could.