You should have some time to think and that’s very important.
AHMED ZEWAILI think the Nobel Prize helps for a number of reasons. Number one, if I can be frank, there is these people will feel by getting a Nobel Prize that I’m one of them, that it is possible to contribute on the world map of science and technology.
More Ahmed Zewail Quotes
-
-
The fastest possible speeds are determined by their molecular vibrations and this speeds is about a kilometre per second.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I came from Egypt and I owe Egypt a lot to what I am now.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
There are many, many books I’ve read and I think this is quite naïve actually because we all just try to uncover something.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I do feel that there are tremendous amount of talent in Egypt, human resources.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I think the Nobel Prize helps for a number of reasons. Number one, if I can be frank, there is these people will feel by getting a Nobel Prize that I’m one of them, that it is possible to contribute on the world map of science and technology.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
Electrons and possibly x-rays to be able to get the architecture of these molecules, the molecular structures themselves, of very complex biological systems. That’s the ultimate goal.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious – but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
One of the things I enjoy most is to be left alone with a book.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
And the other thing also which I’m hoping for is that the government in Egypt is willing and interested in promoting science and technology and this is an ideal time now to be able to do something.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
We still don’t understand how the big bang and evolving all the way to the human species and so on. So all of this is going to be a very, very exciting to the new people.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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 ZEWAIL -
Think about the whole world of biological complex sciences. We still don’t understand the way a protein folds the way it does.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
When I was a child, I thought of my Delta town as the center of the universe, but now I realize how little I know about the universe.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I do have a concern however, humanity has a great way of adapting and I’m sure scientists of the future, probably after I leave this planet, earth will have a new way of dealing with the internet but I do have a concern in the transition period.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I don’t know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
Of course you can imagine I was frozen in time when he said that but then he made a very famous statement, something to the effect that this is the last 20 minutes of peace of your life.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
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.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
I want to really focus on doing this two things I really would like to focus on science and the excitement of science and to help with science.
AHMED ZEWAIL -
Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.
AHMED ZEWAIL