My situation was perhaps similar to that which Freeman Dyson describes in his autobiographical essay “To Teach or Not to Teach.” I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess … and squeezed between the twin oppressions of [a vicious headmaster and bullying boys].… We found our refuge in a territory that was equally inaccessible to our Latin-obsessed headmaster and our football-obsessed schoolmates. We found our refuge in science.… We learned … that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.
