AAPT: American Association of Physics Teachers

Meet William (Toby)

I am very fortunate to have a lifelong experience with Physics. I was born in 1946, and my father, William J. Dittrich, was a grad student in physics and took a teaching position at Western Washington University. He joined the AAPT in 1949 (together, there has been a William Dittrich in AAPT for 76 years). I grew up in his lab while in the WWU Campus school, watching his demonstration of a Tesla coil behind the hall door, powering a light bulb on the hall table. I was inspired at Bellingham High in math by my calculus class teacher. I studied physics at WWU, including taking a course in General Relativity, which later proved useful, and in 1968, I entered graduate school at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and became a candidate for the PhD.