Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Dr. James Mattingly (Photo: Roland Dimaya)

Who is your favorite musician?
Bowie.

Who is your favorite thinker?
Michael Faraday, the first person really to understand the concept of a force field.

If you could come back to life as a plant/animal/thing, what would it be?
On reflection I’m not sure I actually understand the question. But I’m a big fan of sea-gooseberries.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Perhaps the most important piece of advice came from my high school physics teacher. After a long dispute about my score on a quiz—a dispute that arose because I thought one question was badly phrased—he took me back into his office and had me look up “semantics” with him in his very large dictionary. He said “Mr. Mattingly, don’t get bogged down in semantics.” I’ve been bogged down in it ever since.

What is your motto?
Reinventing the wheel, every day.

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