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During the conference, I had several occasions to speak with Professor Sussman about a great range of topics. Professor Sussman is fantastically knowledgeable about many things. If you ever get a chance to have a conversation with the man, I highly recommend dropping everything to do it. At one of the session breaks, I caught the Professor at a coffee station and asked him about something I had heard, which was that in addition to being an expert in electrical engineering he was also a watchmaker. He told me that he had received a Rolex watch as a gift after earning his doctorate (in 1973) and that at some point the watch needed to be cleaned. He sent the watch (which he still wears) to Rolex and noticed upon its return that they had been careless in cleaning it and had either smudged the inside of the crystal or damaged the watch face (I unfortunately don't recall exactly the detail of the blemish). His abundant curiosity lead him to taking it apart to fix the mistake made at the factory. This was apparently Professor Sussman's introduction to the fine art of watch making.Since that time, the Professor has been pursuing experience in the art of watch making. He told me that he travels weekly to the shop of one of the few Master Watchmakers in Massachusetts (somewhere in Stoneham) to do work in exchange for guidance in an art that only a master watchmaker can provide. I couldn't get this story out of my head. Here I was, talking to one of the most revered computer scientists of our time and listening to him recount his own journey toward mastery in a field other than what has been his life's work. It was both humbling and inspiring to hear that the man still lives the life of a learner.http://marioaquino.blogspot.com/2011/09/teacher.html
