ABSTRACT
I distinctly remember March 1965. I was a student in my fifth year at PhysTech,144 living out a dream of working in theoretical physics. Olya Zeldovich-a bright spark in the group of L.G.Landsberg in A.I.Alikhanov’s laboratory, where the department head K.A.Ter-Martirosyan had sent me-said to me, ‘Why are you tormenting yourself? Give my dad a call, he’s forming a group of theoreticians. He’ll like you.’ Every time I pass through the entry gates of ITEP, I am filled with gratitude to all the people mentioned above, and also to my teachers at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, L.B.Okun’, G.A.Leksin, N.A.Burgov, and many, many others. It may be that I spent the most carefree years of my life there, in the dormitory for the students and graduate students from PhysTech, in the library, in the experimental-accelerator hall. There, at ITEP, I.Ya. Pomeranchuk shook my hand (for some reason) at the seminars, and I saw V.B.Berestetskii-one of the authors of Quantum Electrodynamics, which since then has become a primary handbook for me.
