Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism, Vol. 19, Nos. 3-5, July 2006 DOI: 10.1007/s10948-006-0175-6 About Physics, Myself, and Ginzburgs Ivan Bozovic 1 If you are also an admirer of Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg, you will recognize the present title as a reference to his most recent book, “About Science, Myself, and Others” [1]. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will also recognize certain similarity in the style of writing. This is deliberate and meant to be a tribute—an acknowledgement that his tenets have been noticed, understood, and appreciated. It is also meant as a reassurance that his influence will continue to live long. The most striking aspect of that book, to me, is its openness—talking so directly and candidly about one’s private thoughts and feelings. I could see no deliberate attempts to impress the reader. If you have also read “You are surely joking, Mr. Feynman,” you couldn’t but be stricken by the contrast. Don’t let me be misunderstood—Feynman is another of my personal heroes all the same; genius may come in all kinds of personalities. And Feynman is certainly not an exception at all. Most autobiographies of great men, scientists or otherwise, that I have had a chance to read [Despite our names, Natasha and I are nor Russians—we do not even speak Russion, although both of us can read it.] left me in wonder why the author felt such strong need to prove that he was really smart—as if anyone doubted. Now, while not everyone can afford what befits Vitaly, his example is enticing. (Here I will not use Vitaly Lazarevich, which would be more proper but could sound awkward to non- Russian readers.) He makes one wish to be a more sincere person—as well as a better physicist. So, here is my offering, in his style—as candid as I can be. And the topic will be the great influence Vitaly had and has in my life as a physicist. My first direct encounter with Vitaly’s writing occurred exactly 35 years ago, in 1971. (Indeed I came across the Ginzburg–Landau theory even before, but only from secondary sources such as textbooks.) I was a freshman graduate student of physics at Belgrade University, in what then was Yugoslavia. The place was terribly remote in space from any center of science—and even more remote (at that time) by some other measures. Indeed I was in the dark and ‘searching for my soul’ as a physicist. I was unsure where to go; reading textbooks was one thing but choosing a physics problem to which one should devote many years of life was a different matter altogether. So I browsed aimlessly through volumes of Phys. Rev. Lett., Phys. Rev., and the like, bewildered by thousands of problems attacked by various researchers. How did they choose the problem to work on; why did they choose that particular one; why was it important? (Several decades later, I have grown wiser. In most cases, the problem is actually not chosen because it is important but because it is doable—preferably easily. The typical scenario may go like this: we have a technique (apparatus,. . .) that is available and familiar; there is a sample that we can make, get or borrow, so let’s go and 1 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973.