Editing William Lipscomb (section)

===Early years===

"My early home environment ... stressed personal responsibility and self reliance. Independence was encouraged especially in the early years when my mother taught music and when my father's medical practice occupied most of his time."

In grade school Lipscomb collected animals, insects, pets, rocks, and minerals.

Interest in astronomy led him to visitor nights at the Observatory of the University of Kentucky, where Prof. H. H. Downing gave him a copy of [[Robert Horace Baker|Baker's]] ''Astronomy.''
Lipscomb credits gaining many intuitive physics concepts from this book and from his conversations with Downing, who became Lipscomb's lifelong friend.

The young Lipscomb participated in other projects, such as [[morse code|Morse-coded]] messages over wires and [[crystal radio]] sets, with five nearby friends who became physicists, physicians, and an engineer.

Aged 12, Lipscomb was given a small Gilbert [[chemistry set]]. He expanded it by ordering apparatus and chemicals from suppliers and by using his father's privilege as a physician to purchase chemicals at the local drugstore at a discount. Lipscomb made his own fireworks and entertained visitors with color changes, odors, and explosions. His mother questioned his home chemistry hobby only once, when he attempted to isolate a large amount of [[urea]] from [[urine]].

Lipscomb credits perusing the large medical texts in his physician father's library and the influence of [[Linus Pauling]] years later to his undertaking biochemical studies in his later years.  Had Lipscomb become a physician like his father, he would have been the fourth physician in a row along the Lipscomb male line.

The source for this subsection, except as noted, is Lipscomb's autobiographical sketch.<ref name=InHonorOfWnlStructuresAndMechanisms2002/>