He was a Balt who during the first world war had been a Russian officer. Before questioning me in more detail, he asked me kindly what my intentions were. On my answer that my love was really in Botany, and that Chemistry was to keep

me in bread, he exclaimed: ‘That explains everything!’ I was permitted to leave his office in grace. Inorganic chemistry I hated because ICG-001 I was Tipifarnib mw unable to analyze correctly the composition of the salts which were mixed by a misanthropic assistant specially for me, the unfortunate beginner. Returned with an ‘f’ (false) for wrong, an analysis required repetition. A second mistake was not tolerated. For punishment, an extra analysis was given out. How many ‘punishment’ analyses did I do? Quite a few, it is sad to say. Organic chemistry was pure pleasure. Cooking satisfies me even today. I felt up to it intellectually. Crystallization, when it worked with me, made me feel good, when not, it was at least miraculously produced by the glass rod of Professor Burkhard Helferich, a famous sugar chemist, when he happened selleck chemicals to pass by. In 1955, I graduated with the degree ‘Diplomchemiker’. One of the examinations that in Physics, shamed me. I was unable to answer any of the questions of Professor Wolfgang Paul, the examiner. I was sent out for discussion between examiner and a witness. When I was called back, I was congratulated. I had received the best note ‘Very Good’. Not understanding

Interleukin-3 receptor this apparent misjudgement, I went back to my rats and mice and got very drunk. Much

later, when I myself had become an examiner, students possibly profited from this early experience. It had, finally, taught me to be more interested in a student’s ability to consider, to ponder, a question that he cannot answer than in his learning. When I met Professor Paul, by then Nobel prize winner, years later at a conference, I told him of my shame. He smiled: ‘Have I been wrong in my judgement?’ he asked. By the time of my graduation, I had intensified my relations to Botany. I had even been permitted to take part in Botanical excursions. The refusal of Professor Walter Schumacher, the botanist, to accept me as his Ph.D. student in the respectable Faculty of Natural Sciences was compensated by the offer of Professor Hermann Ullrich, Institute of Agricultural Botany in the less respectable Faculty of Agriculture, to accept me as paid assistant. What a good luck! My scientific task was to find out why some plants survive freezing and many others do not. My task as assistant was to prepare experiments for demonstration in the lectures of the professor and to operate the slide projector. Experimental failures were not permitted. The demonstration of unfailingly successful experiments in the professorial lectures taught me not to trust appearances. I understood the necessity to look behind surfaces. The object of my study was winter wheat. Chemistry had taught me to think simply.