PRELIMINARY REMARKS – SCHWINGER'S RESPONSE TO THE AWARD OF AN HONORARY DEGREE AT NOTTINGHAM

I was lucky to spend three days with Julian Schwinger and his wife Clarice in July 1993, shortly before he got sick with his last illness. We were at the University of Nottingham in England to celebrate the two-hundredth birthday of George Green. Julian was in excellent spirits and enjoyed the festivities as much as I did. He gave two talks, a short talk in response to the award of an honorary degree, and a long talk at the Green celebration. I decided it would make no sense to speak today about my personal memories of Julian, memories which are dim and unreliable after forty years. Instead I will give you the authentic Julian, as we saw and heard him in Nottingham only a year ago. So here are his two talks, first the short one and then the long one. He told me that the short one cost him far more time and effort to prepare. The protocol required him to say what he had to say in less than four minutes. As you will hear, he said more in four minutes than most Commencement speakers say in one hour…