Word: mendelsohn
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...Mendelsohn's interest in the far-reaching effects of science go back to his Brooklyn childhood, which he also says was the source of his accent...
...have been described by one of his students as "vintage Mayflower" and by another as "pseudo-English." The Continental flavor, he explains, was picked up from his parents, both of whom were born in Eastern Europe. Regularly, though, Brooklynese pops up in his lectures--"idea" is always "ideer". And Mendelsohn says, "In many ways, I still think of myself as a New York...
...MENDELSOHN's education at Brooklyn Technical High School and Antioch were centered around science in general, biology in particular. He also did graduate work in biology at Harvard, but says, "From the beginning, one of the attractive questions was the role of science in society--the relation of knowledge to its uses...
...classmates at Antioch was Coretta Scott--later to become Mrs. Martin Luther King. With her and other Antioch students, Mendelsohn worked for the still-young civil rights movement and tried his hand at local organizing for the labor movement. Upon graduation, he was uncertain whether he should work for organized labor or go to Harvard. "In 1953, the labor movement was under severe strain from the McCarthy people," Mendelsohn says now. "I made a commitment to myself then, to work towards those goals I saw for society... I hoped that it would never mean having to leave university life...
...Mendelsohn and Harvard have avoided such a choice and in 1960, he was awarded his Ph.D. In 1969, after 14 years of teaching and one year as an overseas fellow at Cambridge University, Mendelsohn became a full professor. "I like what I do" he says. "I like the teaching and I like the research." He also likes Cambridge--"an exciting place"--where he has become firmly rooted year-round with his wife, son, and two daughters. But Mendelsohn has had to be always wary of academic inertia. "The University, at times, likes to fool itself," he says wryly. "It seemed...