As I slowly re-read Isaac Asimov’s autobiography, I can’t help thinking about the parallels between his life and mine. Perhaps not so much parallels, but there are rhymes here and there.

His had a student deferment during a war and later he went to work in the Navy Yard in Philadelphia along with Robert Heinlein when the student deferment ran out. Of course, he was eventually drafted, and of course, he was a lot smarter than I ever was and did eventually get a PhD.

But then there are anecdotes like the following one. Asimov chalks it up to stupidity, but really, I think his initial problem with the pipette was caused by his tendency to schussle, which has always been one of my problems as well.

For once I was getting along with a superior. Professor Dawson and I were soulmates.

This was not because I had ceased to be me. It was entirely because Dawson didn’t mind my peculiarities. Indeed, he was amused by them.

For one thing, I was always running into him with excited ideas, or comments, or results. “Phenomenon-a-minute Asimov” he used to refer to me in speaking to others.

Sometimes the excitement arose over something not entirely creditable to myself.

One time, for instance, I reported to him that a sample of enzyme wasn’t working no matter what I did. I was very gloomy about it for I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. And then I became aware of the fact that I was not using a 2-milliliter pipette, but a 0.2-milliliter one—one that had only one tenth the capacity of the former, though it had the same outward dimensions. Therefore I was always adding just one tenth the amount of enzyme I thought I was adding.

This was a terribly stupid mistake for a chemist to make. A good chemist should be able to tell the capacity of a pipette in the dark just by the feel of it.

Of course, I was far too excited to think about the stupidity of the matter and, therefore, to hide the fact so that no one would know how stupid I was. After all, I had solved the problem of the nonworking enzyme. I therefore rushed into Dawson’s office (quite disregarding the fact that he was talking to someone) and said, “I’ve got the answer to the enzyme problem, Dr. Dawson. I was using a 0.2-milliliter pipette instead of a 2-milliliter pipette.”

Another research professor might have kicked me out of the laboratory for aggravated stupidity in the first degree, but Professor Dawson chose to regard it as an example of honesty. In fact, he was quoted to me as using the term “absolute integrity” in reference to myself, and I didn’t quite have the absolute integrity to tell him it was only stupidity.