I have always had many interests. These " hobbies" are what got me going in science.. In my opinion hobbies are an important and fundamental part of living!!
I've always been conducting "science" experiments. In grade school my father brought home a spark coil from a model T Ford and a transformer to power it. He also gave me some powerful magnets, a few clocks to take apart and an electric motor.
Soon I was shocking the neighbor kids with the spark coil and pulling jar fulls of iron filings from the sands washed out in front of the house and designing and building my own motors.
By seventh grade I was designing and building an "animal", a robot which learned and remembered a maze. I designed this around stepping relays that we got from the telephone company. Nowdays one calls something like that a comuter memory. I called it my animal's "brain". I sort of invented what today is called Boolean algebra.
One day I was playing with some chemicals and running the sparks through them, creating all sorts of strange smells, etc when I accidently put the spark coil wire onto an old light bulb. It glowed most beautifully and this got my curiosity arosed MASSIVELY. I started reading and learned that these things were called cathode rays. After a lot of fooling around I eventually built up my own vacuum system out of an old refrigerator pump and some glass parts from the neon sign company. This won me the "gold" in the science fair. I even eventually succeeded in producing x rays and took some photographs.
I constructed a cyclotron in college, nearly flunking out one semester because of all the attention that took from studies! One of the transmitters I made "came in" the people next door's electric organ and managed to create enough radio interference to disrupt other neighbor's radio and TV programs.
I tried to bounce a radio signal off the moon, but failed. What I DID learn from that excercise, though, was how to work out the properties of a parabala (because I had to make up a parabolic dish) and that experience gave me a lifetime interest in mathematics.
Today I am interested in virtually everything!!
But here are some interests that I hope some of YOU might have that we can talk about:
OLD CARS: I love to restore antique autos and have a lovely 1929 Ford Model A Business Coupe that you see on my homepage. We drive this every week during the summer with the Fairbanks antique auto club and go around town showing off.
HOROLOGY is a big interest, ranging from normal to bizarre sundials, including the use of my house as a giant sundial. Antique railroad quality pocket watches are fascinating devices. I can take them apart, but rarely can get them back together!!
MINERAL COLLECTING has been a fascination since my days growing up in the mining city of Butte, Montana. Finding, cutting and polishing agates is one of my loves and I always try and attend the yearly "rock show" at Tucson in February. (It also provides a chance to thaw out).
I hate to tell you this, but measuring and thinking about AEROSOLS is a hobby, though I get paid for it!! My challange is to build up simple, inexpensive "toy gadgets" that can deduce properties of atmospheric aerosols as well as $50,000 commercial instruments!!
ASTRONOMY and ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY are long-standing interests. I'm fascinated with optics, ground my own mirror and all that sort of stuff and stayed up many nights guiding telescopes on several hour-long time exposures. Gladys asks me why I do this to myself?! I've subscribed to Sky and Telescope since 1960 and before that read it in the library for years.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE is one of my big interest, specializing on pre quantum physics. I have made several pilgramages through the old Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and the Royal Institution in London and have prepared a number of seminars on Rutherford and Faraday.
HISTORY is a great passion. I've read most of Will and Adriel Durant's "Story of Civilization" and most recently Undaunted Courage, a book of the Lewis and Clark expedition and of my favorite president: Thomas Jefferson.
MUSIC is the greatest passion, on the level of interest in science. In my mind they blend together. I've attended symphonic performances since taking a delightful music appreciation at Montana State, and after attending the monthly performances at the Hollywood Bowl, often conducted by Leonard Bernstein, when I was a young grad student. I play the violin poorly and the accordian since childhood.
At the moment, some of my interests are:
My favorite composer (after Beethoven of course) is Gustov Mahler.
Sarah and I placed roses on Beethoven's grave in the Central Cemetary in Vienna. We reserved one rose for Boltzmann, who lies nearby.
PHOTOGRAPHY is a big interest, though these days more in the direction of collecting portraitures of Victorians.
Restoring antique automobiles and driving them around town in the local Antique Auto Club in Fairbanks. You can see my 1929 Ford Model A Business Coupe on the home page!! This car sold for $525 is 1929, corresponding to about $12,000 in today's currency, factoring in average inflation rate.
WALKING AND EXPLORING and THINKING ABOUT NATURE is a passion since my days growing up in the wilds of western Montana. We live in the "country", well outside of Fairbanks and hiking and being a natural philosopher in the woods is my way of keeping mentally healthy
READING is a number one pursuit. I make up for the parochialism of living in a remote place by subscribing to some excellent newspapers and I challange myself to read about a dozen novels from classical literature each year.
BEING A CONSTANT SNOOP (as my mother calls me) is the number one hobby I have. I'm afraid that this is what is most enjoyable and important.