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LEON ESTEROWITZ: When I went into college, one of the natural
things for me was to major – be an English major, but by my
junior year, they told me that in order to graduate, I needed a
science. So I took physics. That was the first time I had
taken physics. It was really like, in my junior year and wow,
that was fun. All you had to do was understand it and it was
like a puzzle. I love puzzles. So then I really loaded up on
all the physics courses I could and I think all I took in my
senior year were physics courses.
I had read some – I love literature and I was – read all
these authors, from Dickens to Mark Twain, all these authors
and you always – I always got the impression, the same thing:
you work hard no matter what, you face obstacles but work
through it. You always learn more from mistakes.
When we moved from – actually, I had lived in Brooklyn. We moved
to Manhattan and I wanted to enter the public school right
across the street from our house. I had to take a physical
first. So we walked oh, about a half a mile to the local doctor
and I had – I took my physical. My mother was with me and
everything was going real well, healthy and this and that,
and then the doctor takes out some pieces of well, different
colors, and he starts asking me what the colors are, and we're
going on for a while, and I see my mother is really getting
embarrassed, and she almost is interrupting and telling me,
"No, that's not right," and the doctor says, "It's OK," and the
doctor keeps going on, and my mother, by this time, is really
flustered because apparently, I'm getting a lot of these
colors all wrong. So the doctor starts explaining, "No, it's not
that. He's what we call colorblind and it's genetic,"
and my mother doesn't believe him. He thinks she's just
being nice and that he doesn't want her to think that she's
raising a stupid son. So – and she doesn't
believe anything the doctor is saying.
So he continues with – he continues on and we finish
up, and he, again, assures her, "Everything is right, he'll be
able to get to school. This is very normal. This is common.
It's not that common, but it happens." So it was
interesting. So we're walking home and I could see my mother
is very agitated. So we're walking past everything. She
points to the grass. "What color is that?" The tree; she's trying
to teach me all these colors and she did that for, I think,
almost a week or two. She just never believed that I was
colorblind. She had never heard of it.
Well, you're always learning new things. Everything is new.
Everything – you're constantly learning what the state of the
art is, the newest advances. You never – it's never boring.
I mean, it's just a constant – new knowledge constantly
happening. To me by far that's the most exciting thing.
So you have to pick not just an interesting subject, but pick
something that's important. Pick something that's relevant.
The other thing, too is make sure that you're not only aware
of the state of the art, but keep abreast of the state of the
art. Try to surround yourself and know as many of the
brightest and smartest people.
Well if I go back to the night vision laboratory – of course,
the night vision devices from today and now, and that was for
defense, but in addition to that, the night vision devices
now are used for so many different things. They –
they're used by the police, they're used by firemen.
Well I didn't know it at the time, but one of the authors
that I read when I was younger was Jules Verne and he's
considered by many to be really the – one of the first science
fiction writers, and I loved his books. So I think he had a
great influence on me and then of course, the other one, like
most people who do a thesis would be the thesis advisor,
and my thesis advisor was Yardley Beers at
New York University, and he had a big influence on me,
especially his creative ways.
I think a lot of people think that maybe engineering or
science or physics might be boring because you're not maybe
interacting with the people that much, but actually, I think you
are. I think they'd be surprised at how exciting it is
and I think when they talk to me and – I think they get the sense
that – how exciting it is. A lot of people ask me now,
"You're not that young anymore, when are you going to retire?"
and I say, "Why should I retire? I love what I'm doing!"
The only thing that I could think of would be some of the
arts and craftsy things that my grandchildren have given me
in my office, I would take those, and there's some
nice pictures, too.
Well that's interesting because when I go to work, I don't put
on the radio at all. I use that quiet time to plan what I'm
going to do, to plan the day, especially the priority. Now
coming home sometimes is a little bit different, especially
if I'm in rush hour, which is usual and so I may want to
listen to – if there's an accident some place.
So if I have the radio on and I know what the traffic is, I may
put on like, the classical musical station because I don't
want to hear any commercials.