Perhaps the most valuable thing he taught me (his father) was that there is no contradiction between devotion to work and enjoyment of life and people
AHMED ZEWAILEverybody thinks some times that science is done as a master plan and that somebody like me came from Mars and figured out everything and so on, but that’s really not the way it worked.
More Ahmed Zewail Quotes
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Scientists contribute in a variety of ways and I don’t think I can singular one even including [Albert] Einstein, that I can say that he’s the best.
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I found with my students they don’t necessarily look at journals any more, but they print right away from the internet what’s relevant to what’s he doing you see.
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I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoint’s and things of that sort.
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Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious – but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance.
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When I give a lecture on Egypt there are thousands of people in the lecture hall, so obviously they would like to go to science and they would love to do science, but you really have to get the correct science base in order for them to interact.
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The fastest possible speeds are determined by their molecular vibrations and this speeds is about a kilometre per second.
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When they called me with the Nobel call from Secretary General of the Swedish Academy it was twenty minutes to six and he said well that was well hope I’m not disturbing you but I am the Secretary General of the Swedish Academy.
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Everybody thinks some times that science is done as a master plan and that somebody like me came from Mars and figured out everything and so on, but that’s really not the way it worked.
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Think about the whole world of biological complex sciences. We still don’t understand the way a protein folds the way it does.
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If you like, there is a Guinness time. The reason for that it’s fundamental. It is not that we have to keep shortening the time. It turns out all molecular and biological systems have speeds of the atoms move inside them.
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So, I’m an old fashioned still in this regard but these are the moment where I really can be creative, if I am, to be left alone with just a book and piece of paper and to be thinking.
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We don’t work like the best basketball player and the best musician and so on. Science is a collective effort.
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I built on the efforts of a previous scientist, others will build on the work I’m doing and if I look at the whole scope from chemistry to biology to physics, it’s just the list is too long to mention just one and it’s not fair to the others.
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I do feel that there are tremendous amount of talent in Egypt, human resources.
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For me to sit down here, even as a Nobel Laureate and make a prediction about which science I think that will be a mistake.
AHMED ZEWAIL