Physics is Fun Memoires of Richard Wilson Version of September 25th 2009

Andrée’s studies and degree
Andrée spent about 6 years in her studies at Massachusetts college of art. She built a dark room in our basement, and spent many evenings down there often unitil the wee hours of the morning. But here health was not good. She would alternate between periods of activity, and in my view too little sleep, and illness. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I was deeply worried that she would not recover. But fortunately she did, and finished her studies. In May 1989 Andrée graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art. The family celebrated of course. Adèle came East, Nicholas came East also. Then Andrée and I went on a trip west to celebrate. We started in Los Angeles. I had been invited to give a talk about Chernobyl at the Harvard Club of Los Angeles, but that got canceled at the last minute because of lack of interest. But we went to Los Angeles anyway since we had booked our tickets and planned a long return route. Driving east we visited Tehechapi and looked at the little 20 acre property owned by Andrée and Adèle in Caliente at the bottom of the Tehechapi pass. From there we went on to Death Valley, Las Vegas, Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon - the first time I had seen it. We stayed at the North Rim and then drove around to the South Rim. We were too lazy, and maybe too old, to walk between the two. Then through the Navajo reservation to the Hubble Trading post in Ganado. This trading post had been used as a starting point by Andrée’s grandfather on his painting trips to the western states and had left two paintings there, presumably in exchange for groceries and supplies. Then we stayed in an American Indian run motel at the NW corner of Canyon de Chelly which we spent a day exploring a canyon where Andrée’s grandfather had painted. Then on past “Four Corners”, looking at the Hovenweep National Monument and on to Mesa Verde National Park. We went on by way of Durango to Alamosa where we looked at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Then crossing the Sangré de Cristo Mountains we went to Westcliff for a couple of days. We had seen Westcliff before in 1979 when returning from a trip to Los Alamos with Elaine and were enchanted with the small town. We looked at places where we might stay on another visit and found a 70 acre farm with farm house and water rights that we could buy for $150,000. It seemed a bargain. We would have had to close in 2 days. We thought about it and went on to Colorado Springs where we stayed with Carol Anne and Nicholas and planned to discuss the matter with them.
That night Andrée had terrible digestive trouble. It was similar to what had happened at Lake Como some 20 years before. I took her to hospital and after a 3 hour wait in the emergency room she was admitted and I left her. The next day she was a lot better but the physicians wanted to keep her under observation for a day or two. I was scheduled to give a talk in Texas about Chernobyl the next day, so after thinking about it I went, with a plan to return to Colorado the next night. But the next night Andrée was released from hospital; Nicholas put her on the plane to Boston, a day later than planned, and we went home together from the airport. I regret now not having stayed, but there were, in fact, no problems. But all thoughts of the farm in Westcliff went.
In August 1990 we were less global in our plans for our vacation. As I noted earlier, we had found a nice little hotel in 1965 when the family came back from the Montreal World Fair . It was in North Hero, on Lake Champlain in Vermont. We started by driving there. But either it had changed or our memories were faulty. After a couple of nights we moved back to the mainland and wandered along the US/Canadian border. Firstly to a town north of Burlington where we went to a local fair, then on to Quebec where we entered the North Maine woods from the Canadian side. We had planned to drive through the woods to the south but were told that we had to leave by the same exit as we came in. We did not risk it. We turned round, made a large circuit, and ended up at a cabin resort, on Moosehead Lake at the southern end of the woods. We spent several fine days there. As will be described we returned several times later.
Andrée continued her photography intermittently for a few more years and her work was displayed in a few shows at South Shore Art Center, but as time went on she felt that her physical strength would not allow her both to work in the garden and to work in the darkroom. She chose the former, and made our garden into on of the best in Newton and won the Mayor’s beautification award.
Puerto Rico and the Carribean
As noted above Andrée and I had spent a week in Puerto Rico by ourselves in January 1960, soon after Annette was born. After that did not go off by ourselves but we went on various holiday trips with the family and encouraged them in skiing in the winter. But we had enjoyed Puerto Rico and in Easter 1987 we went again. Andrée thinks that Angela and Charlie Aaranson came to stay with the children. This time we set off on an island tour. We rented a car and stayed at a small B and B at a minuscule beach, perhaps Cerro Gordo, half way to Arecibo. Then we stayed at Arecibo, and saw the traditional Good Friday parade. On across the island, past the Arecibo radio observatory to Yauco where both of us remember a fine old inn run by a US couple where they gave us grapefruit to take away with us. Then two nights at La Parguera and a visit to the phosphorescent bay. We also looked at the Cabo Rojo light house at the extreme SW of the island. Then back to the NE; my notes say we stayed again at Luquillo for the night but I cannot remember where
Our next trip to the Caribbean was in the mid 1970s when the children could look after themselves. On a neighbor’s recommendation we went to San Maartan (Dutch) and Saint Maartan (French) We did not rent a car on te small island but stayed at a little innin the shore and went around by “publicos”. I stayed a week before heading off to Grenoble for my parity violation experiment, but Andrée stayed a second week.
It was in 1993 (I believe ) that we went to Martinique. We had booked at a seaside hut resort but after two days we found this to be constricting. So we went back to the capital, rented a car and drove around the island a bit; it was from a SE beach that we observed Halley’s comet early one morning.
We had enjoyed Puerto Rico the most so we decided to invite all the children there for our 40the wedding anniversary in 1992. After answering an advertisement for an apartment which was NOT available, we were told of the apartment complex at Playa Azul in Luquillo. We rented an apartment for ourselves at a high rise building, Playa Azul, at Luquillo BeachWe went there just after Christmas1991, and rented 6 or 7 apartments. One for ourselves and one for each of the children. We also sent tickets for each of the children, their companions and the two grandchildren. I met them at the airport and we rented 3 more rental cars! The idea is that the children did not have to be with each other unless they wanted to! I am not sure but suspect that Peter and Julie did nt come on thatv trip. There were a few problems and misunderstandings but it was a great success and several of the children stayed a little longer and toured the island. Others came back by themselves in later years. The whole trip was a great success. I had budgeted $20,000 but bu using frequent flyer coupons only needed $16,000.
It must have been about 1993 that we spent 5 days in Mexico. I had done some consulting work for a company making a glass wool substitute for asbestos and was asked to report on our finding sto the annual meeting at the main resort town Cancun. So we expanded the trip from one day to four and included a day tour to the famous native monument inland.
Our next trip was to Costa Rica about 1997. On this trip hotel arrangements were made in advance. We stayed in a little hotel in the SW suburbs of San Juan. Initially we did not rent a car, but went on a “tour” before taking a bus to a hotel on the west coast. This had fine beaches but we wanted to see a volvano. So we came back and got off the bus before San Juan and rented a car for three days and went up to the main volcano area where we walked a bit Unfortunately we could not find the hotel we had booked at but found another. It was here in a little cabin removed from the main house that we locked ourselves IN to our rook with the key on the outside. I had to break a window to open and crawl through it, to get out. Broken glass outside suggested that we were not the first occupant of the room to be stuck in this way. Someone else had done that before
Annette in particular had traveled around Puerto Rico after the 1992 Play Azul get together, and recommended a nice little beach on the south coast just east of Guarica. So we went there for a few days in1995. We also stayed at a little hotel south of Mayaguez, and after buying snorkeling equipment used it both in Guarnica and on the west coast.
We decided we liked Puerto Rico and went, by ourselves on our 50th wedding anniversary, in January 2003 again staying in the Playa Azul high rise complex. But the children were not content that we had celebrated by ourselves and gave us a marvelous party in June in Gloucester. They all turned up and insisted that Steven Harrison, Andrée’s firstborn, turn up also. It was a great occasion and we were glad not to have to arrange it ourselves.
Elaine and the children recommended a little hotel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in the Yucatan peninsula, to which we went in 2004. We rented a car and drove down the coast. But this trip was cut short by my trigeminal neuralgia and we left for home 4 days early to get an operation. This was done by the Egyptian born neurosugeon at MGH, Dr Eskandar.

Andree was disappointed in the brevity of this trip so we went to the Yucatan peninsula again in December/January 2004/2005. This time renting a villa on the beach below Playa del Carmen for a week, then a couple of days to the north and 3 nights at an inn in the small town of xxxxx. We flew back in time for meeting the students at the reading period but I had picked up pneumonia on the plane back. It was full of pre school children who notoriously carry infections.

We decided against Mexico for our next trip in mid January 2007 and went back to Puerto Rico. We spent a whole month in Puerto Rico Rico, renting a villa in a gated estate, Solimar, in Luquillo just next to Playa Azul. This included a trip to the west coast to Aquadilla, and Rincon, and another trip to Rincon.
In March 2009 we went t Puerto Rico once again We had hoped to be renting the same villa as we had 2 years before but had a misunderstanding and we spent it again in Playa Azul apartments. That worked out fine.

Family Cars
It has been said that one can tell a lot about a person by the cars he owns. So I note here a section on them. My parents’ first car, actually my father’s because my mother did not drive, was a small Singer about 1928. But about 1933, about the same time that we moved to Merton Park, my father bought an Invicta touring car. It was bright yellow. Politicians in 1933 were worried about communism being exported from Russia, and Asian immigration into Australia and other parts of the world - the Red Menace and the Yellow Peril. The Invicta became the Yellow Peril. It was a touring car with running boards. Seats were leather with a blow up inner tube. On the luggage rack at the back was a complete picnic case with cups, saucers, and plates, and a small stove for making tea. There was no synchromesh. It had “clash” gears that demanded a double de-clutch on changing down. It was one of a small group made - only a few hundred. My memory is that it gave a lot of trouble.
We used it to drive north to collect my grandparents for Wakes Week. But on two occasions the “big end”, of the piston drive broke in one cylinder. That happened as we slowed down from a period of high, 60 mph, speed. The first time we were on the A1 passing Welwyn Garden City just in the northern suburbs. We came back home by train. I think my grandparents went north by train. On the second time we were coming south by a long scenic route through Glossop, Kidderminster, Worcester and Oxford. We had advice. If a “gig end” fails again, disconnect the spark plug on the offending cylinder, overfill with oil and proceed at no more than 20 mph. We limped back past Oxford, got a tow up the Nettlebed hill, and came home. But my father had disconnected the wrong spark plug! The basic problem was traced then to a defective oil pump.
The car was laid up from 1939 to 1945. Then it was put back into service. I was allowed to drive it about 1946 and Geoffrey and I borrowed it to bring a lot of stuff home. I was driving east out of Henley up the hill and had trouble on a turn to the left; I went across the road to the verge on the right and stopped. Geoffrey took over and drove us both home. It transpired that it was not my fault but the steering had an intermittent lock.
But it was in 1948 that I bought my motor cycle, a Royal Enfield 350 cc, for 80 pounds. Which achieved 80 miles per gallon. There was still petrol rationing so I would sometimes switch to ethyl alcohol, ethanol, at 40 mpg. There were three stores which sold alcohol in London, and one was on the Great west Road in Hounslow, on the road between Oxford and London. I would drive up: empty the petrol tank into a spare “Jerry can”; change the carburetor jet; fill up with ethanol and I was on my way.
I got my first car in January 1951 in Rochester. Dr Theodore (Ted) Dunham in Rochester had an old 1941 wooden Ford station wagon, “Woody Wagon”, in US parlance, but “Shooting Brake” for the British upper class, to which I never belonged or wanted to belong. He was not using it and it was in storage at his brother-in-laws house in Chestnut Hill, Brookline. He lent it to me. It was a fine car which used a lot of gasoline. It reached 12 mpg. I drove it to Rochester, turning it on its side in a snowdrift at Richfield Springs with no real trouble as described elsewhere.. I would have liked to buy it from Ted to drive west, but he preferred to keep it. So I bought another, 1939, Ford Woody Wagon for $400. But this gave me trouble in Canada as described earlier. This we sold in September 1952 as we set off from Palo Alto for England.
In England in 1952 Andrée and I did not have a car at first. But I needed to be able to take equipment from Oxford to Harwell and in March 1953 I bought a new Ford Van. The British slapped a purchase tax of 66 2/3 % on private cars, which were deemed luxuries, but a van was not only cheaper but had only a 35% tax. I then put windows in the back and a crude seat - a trick I learned from Victor Round. This was the car we used that year to go to the Lake district in April, to France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy in August and on a couple of Morris dance tours. The following year we took it to the Isle of Wight and I went up to the Glasgow conference with it. In 1955 we drove to Southampton to catch the boat, the Flandre, to New York and Laurie bought it from me and picked it up in Southampton.
When we reached Cambridge we had no car for a month. But Ted Dunham offered me his old “woody wagon” for $100. This was the car he had lent me in 1951. We had to collect it, this time from his brother-in-law’s summer house in South Tamworth. We took the train north. The 8 am for Bangor, with a stop at Durham where we changed for the train to Whittier, where we were picked up. This car was fine for a year. But in summer 1956 the engine was in deep trouble. It was using more oil than gasoline! It would have cost $500 + to fix it so we bought another car. A Ford sedan for $150. This lasted a month when another car coming fast down Harvard Street ran into me as I was on Trowbridge. The car again was not repairable. My student, Arthur Kuckes, suggested moving the good engine from the sedan to the station wagon. But this also was too expensive. This time I bought a Plymouth sedan from Kurt Gottfried for $300. That lasted 6 years. We drove it to Maine and New York. The body was sinking and the seat sat directly on the frame. The gears were not changing right and I could no longer get into reverse. We finally drove it to the junk yard in December 1961.
But in 1951 when we were in France, I bought a French car, a Peugeot 403 “Limousine Familiale” for $1,400. The SUVs were not yet built in the USA and the US station wagons had only 2 rows of sets. The limousine familiale had a middle row of jump seats.. This we drove in France, to England to Austria and to Nice before having it shipped to Boston from Marseilles We shipped it by train from Nice to Marseilles before taking the plane to London and on to Boston. But there was a strike in Marseilles and the car sat on the pier for 3 months. When it was finally shipped, the boat decided not to unload in Boston, because there was too little traffic, and went on to Baltimore. At no cost to me it was shipped up to Cambridge by truck where I picked it up in January 1962, 2 weeks after the demise of the old Plymouth. The Peugeot had various problems. A new gear box after 30,000 miles. As the family grew the jump seats were not ideal for a long trip such as when we crossed the country to Aspen in 1967, but it was fine for awhile. Moreover on that trip the cooling water pump had to be replaced twice - in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. The valves had to be redone in Wyoming, after 65,000 miles. So when I went on leave again in 1969 we bought a new car.
This time I bought a VW microbus for $1,400 delivered in Munich, whence I drove to Rome, back up to Milan to fly to America in June to collect the family, down to Rome, and back through Geneva to Paris. We then shipped it to Newark where I collected it. And we sold the Peugeot for $150. The VW had better seating for the family. It was fine when stationary, but the faster we went, the worse it became. It was not a good car for long trips, but by the time we next crossed the country fate had intervened. In April 1974 one of the children’s friends, Steven Bottomley was driving it with Nicholas as a passenger along Commonwealth Avenue when another car coming along Cedar street ran through a stop sign and ruined the front right side. Nicholas got a broken thigh, for which he had to be in hospital for 3 months, and the car was a dead loss.
This time the US industry had perked up. We were able to buy from a used car dealer, a GM suburban with three real rows of seats, for about $2,700. This was an excellent buy. But it lasted only 8 months. On Christmas day that year the dinner was late - about 9pm or 10 pm. I was dead tired and was scheduled to fly on the first plane to Fermilab at dawn the next day to scatter muons. Margaret Panofsky had spent Christmas with us and Michael drove her home. On the way home he drove the Suburban into a tree on Tyler terrace, effectively destroying it.
So in January 1975 we looked for another suburban. We found another, second hand, one, but it was not such a good buy. It was older and not in such good shape. Nonetheless we drove it west to the Bridger Wilderness in the summer. As noted elsewhere, as we left Laramie the gasoline tank fell onto the road and sparked as we drove along. We were delayed a day as bought the new tank.
I think that this car only lasted a few years. Andrée drove Elaine to college in St Louis in it in 1977. By now also there was less necessity for a car that could accommodate 6 large teenagers. So we looked around for a better car and found a second hand Mercedes diesel with 100,000 miles on it for $3,700. I think this was 1979. The body had holes in it, but Michael, Nicholas and Peter all told me that they would fix it. I went off for a trip to Geneva, for 3 days and when I got back there was a new floor. Diesels do not have spark plugs but glow plugs. In this car they had to be heated for a minute before starting. As the impatient Carlo Rubbia said while waiting for me to start: “it is a car for a man who has arrived and not for a young man in a hurry”. But Carlo bought a Mercedes, which did not need glow plugs, soon afterwards. This car was perhaps the most comfortable car we ever owned. Andrée drove it out west when we collected Elaine from her graduation at Washington University, and I joined them there and we drove home. All was fine with this car until I was caught in a multi car pile up on the central artery as I was going to the airport one day. We had put 70,000 miles on the car; smoke was coming out of the back and it needed an engine job. So when the other guy’s insurance offered me $2,600, and I could sell what was left of the car for $400, I took it and we bought another. On balance I had spent $600 for 6 years and 70,000 miles. On the whole it was a very good deal.
Our next car was a Chevrolet station wagon. It was bought new for about $6,000 and we ran it till the mid 1990s. I was very pleased with the car. It had front wheel drive, with a McPherson suspension, and did very well in snow. Peter was the first to show this when driving through 6 inches of snow on Blake Street. My first trip was to Cornell and back. It was in this car that Andrée and I had an interaction with an uninsured deer on the way to Cornell. The front end and radiator had bad damage which was fixed locally. In the end I gave it to the high energy group and took a tax deduction, and it was used by myself when I visited Ithaca and by students at other times. Finally it was junked.
By this time we decided we needed, and we could afford two cars. For a short while we borrowed Chris’ little VW car while he was in Paris. But in early 1996, I believe, we saw an advertisement for a second hand Volvo. It was from a dealer who had used it personally, and he cheated us. The gear box was bad from the word go, and in September 1996 we had to have a new gear box. Then in 1997 we had to have a new cylinder head. It had become distorted from some earlier overheating. So we had to replace the cylinder head but got rid of the car. We then bought a new Nissan sedan.
The Nissan was fine, and was used for about 7 years. But then we changed in 2001 to a new VW Passat with manual transmission. We still have the Passat, although Andrée finds it difficult with her arthritis. In 2005 after trying several cars we bought a Honda accord automatic.
Meanwhile in 1994 or so I had to replace the Chevrolet wagon and we saw an advertisement for a Ford for $5,100. I bought it and used it for 10 years until someone made an illegal U turn just in front of me on Commonwealth Avenue without looking. It was officially totaled, although I could drive it anyway but it would not have passed any safety test. . I was reminded of my motor cycle accident some 55 years before. After arguing, I got $2,100 from the insurance company, and sent the car away for a $500 tax deduction and am now driving Andrée’s Passat now that she has a Honda Accord.
Here I note my various problems. Three times in my life I have fallen asleep when driving. In January 1951, when driving Boston to Rochester, I fell asleep between Troy and Schenectady N.Y. Fortunately the car veered into the curb on the busy street and I woke up at once and corrected it. Later, in early August when driving in Canada from Mica creek down the gravel road to Revelstoke, I fell asleep again. This time I had Alexander Fabergé with me to wake me. On my right was a drop off of 100 feet to the Columbia River and on the left, a cliff. I veered to toward the cliff and woke before hitting it. After that I regularly picked up hitchhikers and demanded in exchange for a lift that they talk and keep me awake. Nowadays I am even more careful. I will stop at the side of the road and go to sleep. Once I was woken by a traffic cop assuming, incorrectly, that I was “under the influence.” Now I have a device that I put on my ear. If and when I nod it beeps and wakes me. But I usually forget it and leave it at home. In the 1980s Andrée got severe depression which she has controlled with the drug “Parnate” The depression was accompanied by fibromyalgia which was cured by a skillful physical therapist. Both of us have arthritis, but in Andrée’s case it is sufficiently debilitating that she has to take 10 mg per day of a steroid, prednisone, to keep sane. In 2008 she slipped in the kitchen floor and broke her hip. She had to get a new one. Three weeks after the skillful surgeon had installed a metal hip prothesis she was beginning to walk quite well with her new hip. But then it was heavily infected with Methicillin Resistant Staphyllococcus Aureus or MRSA for short. When the bones or the protheses are infected only a few antibiotics will work on the biofilm surrounding the part which has no blood vessels. Only one would do so That is rifamkin, and for reasons unclear to me it has to be accompanied by another strong one, vancomycin Vancomycin was given intravenously twice a day but oral rifamkin made Andrée vomit and an anti nausea drug was needed also. But our neighbours and children were wonderful. Each of the kids interrupted their busy schedules that spring and came and spent a week or so.

In October 2008 Andrée fell again and broke her elbow in several places. She was in California, showing Elaine varios places she knew as a girl, and he grandfather’s house in Monrovia. But she spontaneously fell when walking to the car. A surgeon called it: “the terrible triad”. He could have had it fixed in California but everyone recommended coming home where she could recover at home ans see an expert, Dr Jupiter in MGH., Dr Jupiter could have operated but it would have taken 2 hours in the operating room to fix the joint. Both Andrée and Dr Jupiter were worried about a recurrence of MRSA, so she has been building a new joint, somewhat less flexible than before, with frequent therapy. As I write this she is recovering slowly.