by Many expected Heim to end the pity of the Podick family. Although the elder Bodick was busy with his work in laboratories around the world and was absent for many years, never assisting the younger Bodick in his research, he still held his son to extremely high standards. The only way to gain his favor was to have outstanding academic achievement, and that started in elementary school. Heim is a gifted person who understands difficult concepts effortlessly and can come up with excellent original ideas. In all respects he was a scholar, a young genius. But Heim became a deserter. As a teenager he began to resist his father’s pressure to inherit the mantle. He dyed his hair black, played drummer in a thrash metal band, hung out with rough people, and often stayed away for weeks. In 1988, when Heim was seventeen, his father made a prediction. At family gatherings, he publicly lamented his son’s lack of discipline. He asserted: “It is absolutely impossible for Heim to win the Nobel Prize!”
