Having already had some interest in the theory of gravitation and having at London C.W. Kilmister, with F.A.E. Pirani soon to follow me from Cambridge, the choice of general relativity and gravitation as a topic was fairly obvious. Work on various problems began that winter but was not particularly focused.
In June 1955 I was pleased to be invited to what turned out to be a superb conference in Berne to celebrate 50 years since special relativity. The conference, organized by An-the Mercier and chaired by Wolfgang Pauli, was excellent. My only surprise was that I, as a relatively junior person, had been invited.
So many of the great figures of physics were there; it was indeed a very fine occasion. It was one of the rare public appearances then of Max von Laue, who was almost the same age as Einstein. (Einstein himself had died a few months earlier.) ...
