What surprising job have you had in the past?

As an undergraduate I paid for college by working the night shift in a New Orleans shipyard. I was a physics major by day, shipyard worker by night. I slept through a couple of morning classes.

What would you want to be doing if not teaching?

I would love to be a comedy writer. Not a performer, but a writer. Second choice, a dolphin trainer. That sounds cool. Might be a problem since I can’t swim.

What do you hate that everyone else loves?

I don’t think I absolutely hate anything, but social media comes to mind as something many people seem enthralled by, but I have neither the time nor a use for it. Look up from your phone at the universe!

What do you love that everyone else hates?

Working on weekends.

What was the last book you finished?

Creation by Gore Vidal. I love ancient history, and Creation is great historical fiction about the Achaemenid Persian era. Of course as a cosmologist I am interested in the origin of the universe.

What was the last book you recommended to a friend?

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown.

What was the last book you put down before you finished it?

A few years ago I started Atonement by Ian McEwan, disliked it, put it down, and picked it up again a year later and loved it. Don’t give up on a book!

What do you most love to teach—whether a work, an idea, a course, or something else?

I love to teach the connections between the incredibly small (the world of the quantum) and the unfathomably large (the universe of the cosmos). The connection between inner space and outer space fascinates me, and I try to convey the fascination to students.

What book changed your life?

Not a book I read, but a book I wrote: The Early Universe, with my Chicago colleague Michael Turner. Just about everything I know about cosmology I learned by writing the book.

What person, alive or dead, would you want to write your life story?

Groucho Marx, my favorite comedian and a surprisingly good writer. A life story should be told with humor. Groucho and I share a birthday, October 2.

What’s your least useful talent?

Things I learned working in the shipyard are not useful talents for a theoretical cosmologist. After it helped pay for my college education, I haven’t needed to weld anything.

Tell us the best piece of advice you’ve received—or the worst.

Best piece of advice: In basketball as in life, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.

What advice would you give to a brand-new Maroon?

When students ask, What should I do? or What should I study? I reply, do what makes your heart beat fastest. Follow your passion. A life without passion is empty.

Who was your best teacher, and why?

My PhD thesis adviser, Duane Dicus of the University of Texas. He taught me not only how to do physics but how to be a physicist. I started graduate school as an underprepared student from a small commuter university and finished graduate school prepared for a rewarding academic career.