A balanced life
It was very funny to read the cover-story of the March issue, when Ruth Howes mentions the feeling she got from fellow physicists: "It was about who could work hardest and who could be the tiredest"—this is indeed widespread in the physics community.
Competition is strong and physics is not an easy subject, but I admire physicists who are doing a good job, yet organize their work such that it doesn't prevent other projects in their life from happening. Physicists need to be intelligent, creative, and curious, so they should be interested in many other things in life.
I am sure that physics benefits from work atmospheres which are not perceived as one having to suffer or to sacrifice "everything" for the privilege of being a physicist. Elizabeth Freeman's career choice is certainly a very interesting, and certainly too rare, example of this.
Ursula Bassler, IN2P3, France
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