Scientist Quotes

Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.

X-Ray crystallography is nowadays an accurate and rapid method of determining conformation in the crystal lattice, which conformation usually corresponds to the preferred conformation in solution.

The first serious applications were in triterpenoid chemistry.

Many transition states have a well-defined preferred geometrical requirement.

It does not seem, however, that organic chemists were much worried about barriers to rotation in organic molecules in general at that time because there was no technique available to demonstrate the phenomenon experimentally.

Every chemical reaction has a transition state.

There was no 'before' the beginning of our universe, because once upon a time there was no time.

There is no reason that the universe should be designed for our convenience.

It is well to fetter the wings of our fancy and restrain its flights.

It is quite possible we may have formed entirely erroneous ideas of what we actually see. The greenish gray patches may not be seas at all, nor the ruddy continents, solid land. Neither may the obscuring patches be clouds of vapor.

I have been watching and drawing the surface of Mars. It is wonderfully full of detail. There is certainly no question about there being mountains and large greatly elevated plateaus.

Man is too quick at forming conclusions.

Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is.

On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned.

It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it to be devoured by worms.

I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it.

If the poor overweight jogger only knew how far he had to run to work off the calories in a crust of bread he might find it better in terms of pound per mile to go to a massage parlor.

The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped.

The Nobel awards should be regarded as giving recognition to this general scientific progress as well as to the individuals involved.

The combined results of several people working together is often much more effective than could be that of an individual scientist working alone.

Science is a field which grows continuously with ever expanding frontiers.

My earlier award was also based on a close collaborative effort.

Further, science is a collaborative effort.

There are things that I would say that you could call an instant of time; or better, a now. As we live we seem to move through a succession of instants of time, nows, and the question is, what are they? There are where everything in the universe is at this moment, now.

The passage of time is simply an illusion created by our brains.

My ideas about time all developed from the realization that if nothing were to change we could not say that time passes. Change is primary, time, if it exists at all, is something we deduce from it.

Vertigo, it was thought at the time, could only be caused by a disease of the cerebellum. He observed this kind of patient for years and saw absolutely no symptoms of brain disease.

Two minutes later the right arm was pointing normally and the reaction to the left appeared. The patient made no complaint at all about the experiment.

The site of hearing was now known to be in the cochlea.

The investigations also proved that there were many cases of spontaneous deviation, i.e. cases where there had been no stimulation of the semi-circular canal apparatus.