Dr. Samuel Beckett was born on August 8, 1953 and grew up on his family's dairy farm in Elk Ridge, Indiana. He could read at age 2, do advanced calculus in his head at 5, and went to MIT at age 17, graduating 2 years later, and has 7 doctorates including medicine, quantum physics, and ancient languages, but NOT psychiatry or law. He speaks 7 modern languages including English, Japanese, French, Spanish and German, but not Italian or Hebrew and 4 dead ones (he can read Egyptian hieroglyphics). He has a Nobel Prize, field unspecified, but probably for physics. For this, "Time" magazine called him "the next Einstein". He played the piano at Carnegie Hall at 19. He plays guitar, is a good dancer, and sings tenor (his favorite song is John Lennon's "Imagine"). He has a photographic memory, can cook, and likes dry or light beer and microwave popcorn. Sam also knows several kinds of martial arts and has been afraid of heights since he was 9 years old. He was originally engaged once, but was stood up at the altar. An accident occurred during a leap in the middle of a lightening storm which caused Sam and Al to temporarily change places. At this time, he discovered he was NOT stood up at the altar and that he was in fact married to his greatest love, Donna. This was no doubt due to events in a prior leap where he was able to alter her life in such a way that she was able to commit to marriage with him.