Modern low temperature physics began with the liquefaction of helium by Kamerlingh Onnes and the discovery of superconductivity at the University of Leiden in the early part of the 20th century.

There are few moments in science in which you genuinely are excited. The discovery of superfluidity in helium-3 was one of those moments.

I look back upon graduate school as being a very happy period in my life. The chance to be thoroughly immersed in physics and to be surrounded by friends pursuing similar goals was a marvelous experience.

Following graduation from high school in 1948, I attended Harvard University where I became a physics major. Having grown up in a small town, I found Harvard to be an enormously enriching experience. Students in my class came from all walks of life and from a great variety of geographical locations.

When I was younger, I was an avid science girl. I was all about, 'I'm going to be a doctor.' Even when I graduated, I was like, 'I'm going to be a doctor.' Even though I did acting and I was in plays and drama clubs in high school and college, I still didn't think I was going to take it on as a career.

I have done a lot of things outside of Science Fiction, but there has been an almost disproportionate amount of that genre in my body of work. I don't know what to make of it.

Even in technology, you have the freedom to solve a problem your way, you see. But it naturally sits in a certain framework whereas, in the physics, everybody had to come up with his own idea what he was going to do.

Much of contemporary science is really the length and shadow of the technology we apply.