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Influential teachers

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Ambidexterity
John Wheeler Scientist
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Working with my left hand probably came from the visit my mother's father and mother made to us in California. My grandmother was teaching me to use a hammer, and she used it in her right hand, and I, facing her, used it in my left hand. So I came to be using tools in a left handed way. That would have been back when you were three or four years old? Yes. And that was- I don't know how that dripped over into writing, but it evidently did. But I can't write a proper letter with my left hand.

John Wheeler, one of the world's most influential physicists, is best known for coining the term 'black holes', for his seminal contributions to the theories of quantum gravity and nuclear fission, as well as for his mind-stretching theories and writings on time, space and gravity.

Listeners: Ken Ford

Ken Ford took his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1953 and worked with Wheeler on a number of research projects, including research for the Hydrogen bomb. He was Professor of Physics at the University of California and Director of the American Institute of Physicists. He collaborated with John Wheeler in the writing of Wheeler's autobiography, 'Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics' (1998).

Duration: 53 seconds

Date story recorded: December 1996

Date story went live: 24 January 2008