public class Paycheck { double amount; <- this is initalized to 0.0 Date payday; <- this is initialized to null (no memory allocated) public void computePay() { double taxRate; <- this is NOT initialized } } -------------------------------------- fields in the Class (amount, payday) are stored in "long term memory" (heap) of the Java runtime fields in a method (taxRate) are stored in "short-term memory" (stack) and are not initialized