ny

Anyway, Herman told us that Julian was so young, like 10 or 11 years old, he was already sitting
in a physics course in the City College of New York (CCNY.) The story was in one of the physics
courses Julian took, the lecturer noticed that there was a little kid who was sitting all alone way
up at the back. This kid apparently never looked up when the lecturer was lecturing. The lecturer
naturally became very curious and thought that this little kid must be doing something naughty,
like masturbating!
One day, the lecturer could not contain his curiosity and actually went up to the kid, and saw the
kid was intensely reading an advanced physics book on QUANTUM MECHANICS, a book
which the lecturer thought would be a challenge for many sophisticated graduate students in
theoretical physics. The lecturer asked the kid: “Do you understand what you are reading?” The
kid looked up and answered with a bewildered look, “Yes, why not?”

So, the lecturer invited the kid to his office and asked the kid to explain to him what he had
understood from that book. The kid then proceeded to explain to the lecturer with utter clarity
what he had read. The lecturer was deeply impressed. That kid was of course Julian Schwinger.
After that, the lecturer thought that Schwinger was simply wasting his time in CCNY. He
immediately introduced him to go to Columbia’s physics department (this was told to me by my
good friend, an outstanding physicist who is also a fellow Singaporean.) Schwinger stayed at
Columbia, and completed his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from another great physicist, I. I. Rabi
(Nobel laureate in physics in 1944. Rabi was of Polish Jewish origin, who came to New York
City as a baby.)