Finding a Ph.D. Thesis Topic

The following “article” constitutes the foreword of a Ph. D. thesis entitled “A Dynamic Measurement of Lifetimes and Binding Energies of Helium Atoms Adsorbed on Surfaces at Low Temperatures, and their Astrophysical Implications” submitted in January 1973 to the M.I.T. Department of Physics [published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 31, 703 (1973)). The work was done in the Molecular Beam Laboratory in the M.I.T. Research Laboratory of Electronics under the direction of Prof. John G. King. Professor King sent me this foreword after we had discussed how poorly journal articles reflect the human story of research. The foreword is reproduced here with the addition of two explanatory footnotes. The references to physical phenomena assume a specialist audience and so may be obscure for the general reader. But the human story of finding a thesis topic is clear enough.