[T]he best part of [being the head of a research institute] is that I thought about areas of science I haven't thought about since I was in college. I haven't thought about physics, I haven't thought about real chemistry since I was a graduate student. I certainly never thought about astronomy. Now, suddenly, I'm really connected to people who are doing front line work in earth sciences, geochemistry, geophysics, extragalactic astronomy. We own two observatories and I have to worry about the care and tending of telescopes and the construction of telescopes. So I've learned something about optics, I've learned something about the solar system in a real way which I'd never even thought about before.
And I've learned, really, that all of this is a big continuum of science, really held together by the notion of evolution, that everything is always changing in the universe, in the solar system, on earth, and so a lot of the ideas that "cook" things have common threads to them--although the actual science, of course, is very, very different.
