Orson is halfway through a lecture about the physics of weather, reviewing the way that an object’s mass (a thunderhead, for example) ties force and acceleration together.

A student asks how much a cloud weighs, and Orson explains that mass is not the same as weight, and he gives the equation.

He moves on to open a discussion about lightning and how a magnetic field has lines that reach out…

Every January, the university president hosted a tea at his gracious home for  newly-hired faculty members, and all professors were expected to attend (in semi-formal attire) to welcome them.

Orson spent probably more time than necessary selecting the right tie and socks for the occasion, and in the end he chose the same blue-gray tie and charcoal gray socks as he always wore when required to put on his one and…

There is a tender moment at the beginning of every semester when a teacher faces a classroom of  new students and each has high hopes for the other -- and this occurs before the students cheat on exams or plagiarize or make up lavish excuses for poor work or the professor turns out to be boring or jaded or incompetent.

It was Orson’s experience as a professor of physics that his hopes and those of the students were – and…