treiman's parents, abraham and sarah, were jewish immigrants from eastern europe who emigrated to chicago. sam had a brother, oscar, who was six years older. sam was educated in the chicago public school system and, after graduating high school in 1942, he entered northwestern university, electing to study chemical engineering. after two years at northwestern he joined the navy, training as a radar repair technician and he spent the last year of the war as a petty officer in the philippines, doing, in his words, "a prodigious amount of reading in the peaceful jungles - novels and science". after the war he went to the university of chicago, receiving a b.s. (1949) and m.s. (1950), having changed his major to physics. he received an atomic energy commission predoctoral fellowship and in 1952 he was granted a phd by the university of chicago. his doctoral thesis dealt with the physics of cosmic rays, and the work was done under the supervision of john alexander simpson. while at the university, sam met his wife, joan little, an educational psychologist. they have three children - rebecca, katherine and thomas.