Children of professsors are not like us

 

S and I went to Hopfield's Nobel Lecture 

 

 

 (very good, but do not waste one minute on Jumper's lecture) and talked about you, children of professors vs. our own expectations as scientists. A lover from graduate days at Cornell, which I was madly in love with, had been introduced to me as a "daughter of a Cornell professor", a bit of information that seemed irrelevant  - nobody ever brought up professions of parents of other friends I had.  But maybe you guys are not like us, civilians.

Hopfield's was a child of two physics professors, and already in his teen years was pondering what would be important problems, meaning Nobel Prize level important.

I was raised as an often hungry child of a single mother in two-rooms 5th floor walk-up of what used to be the kitchen and the maid's room of a what originally was large apartment owned by a Jewish family that vanished under Nazi occupation, and I am still - honestly, really! - amazed that I have job that gives me freedom to sit and think about what I love to think about, and nevertheless a paycheck magically appears on my bank account most months of the year. A thought that I should think about important problems never crossed my mind.

The same with S. She was perfectly happy teaching evening adult physics classes at U of * - she started that at age 16 not to have to ask her father for any money, and hanging out with other physics nerds, until one evening when she was told to flee the country or otherwise be  disappeared the next day by fascist thugs. Kind colleagues at U of * made it possible for her and her husband to enroll into the graduate program in the weird barbarian north. Once she understood that her adviser was an ignorant fool, she did whatever seemed interesting. The thought that what she worked on should be important never entered the considerations. 

But you guys (and I have crossed paths with many, statistics of fessors begetting fessors being what it is) seemed to belong here, starting age three.

I apologize if I am off the mark, as - beyond knowing you professionally, I know nothing.

This thing -being Central European "intellectual"- I did get from growing up in a home at all hours filled with equally semi-hungry poets, sculptors, art historians, writers constantly arguing, with conflicting views on things they were blissfully ignorant about.  They made me who I am, I fled them for math and physics, where things were either true or false.