Dr. Stanford's Solid State Physics Class

When I first attended Georgia Tech in 1965, there was an optional two-week orientation program I attended prior to the start of classes That two-week period had more impact on me that any other course I attended.

The setting was a campground in rural Georgia. The purpose of the orientation program was to prepare you for the Georgia Tech environment before your first class. I learned about RAT Hats, George P. Burdell, and the Georgia Tech Fight Songs. I will always remember the first group meeting where the speaker told us to look at the person on your right and the person on the left and realize that they will probably not complete their college courses to gain a degree at Georgia Tech. Miller Templeton and Dr. Stanford were chaperones in charge of the campground building to which I was assigned.

I never realized the impact of having these two guys as my orientation instructors. I still remember Dr. Stanford playing the guitar with protest songs from that era. Dr. Stanford had a beard and long hair and was great to know. He was a 60's type of person, but also a teacher of Solid State Physics at Georgia Tech. The Fernbank Science Center was created with the help of Dr. Stanford. He was the smartest person that I have every met and has always been a little ahead of his time.

When I was a student in the Physics Graduate School, I had a graduate class in Solid State Physics that was taught by Dr. Stanford. Your grade was determined by averaging the mid-term exam, a paper, and the final exam. I missed the mid-term due to having double pneumonia. I met with Dr. Stanford to reschedule the mid-term exam and he said that he would skip the midterm and base my grade 50% on the final and 50% on my paper. My paper was on the reverse theory of light. In my paper, I took Maxwell's equations, Newton's Laws, and Quantum Mechanic , Einstein's Relational Quantum Mechanics and showed that there was no way to determine the flow of light. The equations supported either direction of the photon flow. I received my paper just before the final exam with no grade but YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME” written on the cover of my paper. No grade was on the paper.

The final exam was the last one of the final exam week, so Dr. Stanford told us that he was going home and to slide the exams under his office door when we finished and he would pick them up Monday Morning. After about 12 hours, no one had left the exam room. I did my best to answer all questions on the exam because I figured that I had an F on my paper. I was the first to leave so I assumed I would get an F as my final course grade too. Other people in the class worked on the exam from Friday to the next Monday. You cannot believe my relief when I saw the A next to my student ID. I learned a valuable lesson from the experience, never give up when the chips are down. Wait a few minutes and see what life brings to you?