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.
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.
But the universe at large is full of questions that we still don’t know anything about and there will be always young people brilliant who are going to make new discoveries.
I thought in my Nobel Lecture I pointed that I was delighted that the Swedish Academy of Science did not quote anything about my current work right now, because the current work that my group is focusing on is actually both the time resolve.
I do feel quite strongly about this that probably one of the things that unfortunately this age now to get a Nobel Prize is to really use part of it to help the young people get excited about science.
As a child, I thought I was immortal, but now I recognize how limited a time we all have. As a child, success meant scoring A on every exam, but now I take it to mean good health, close family and friends, achieve- ments in my work, and helping others.
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.
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.
