Steven Weinberg was born in 1933 in New York City. His parents were Jewish immigrants; his father, Frederick, worked as a court stenographer, while his mother, Eva (Israel), was a housewife. Becoming interested in science at age 16 through a chemistry set handed down by a cousin, he graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1950. He was in the same graduating class as Sheldon Glashow, whose research, independent of Weinberg's, resulted in their (and Abdus Salam 's) sharing the 1979 Nobel in physics.