Nobel laureates in Chemistry

"Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. … The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character."

"We may in these processes obtain very great quantities of energy, but on the average we cannot hope to obtain energy for practical use in this way. The bombardment of the atom is a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy and anyone who is looking for a source of cheap power in the transformation of the atom, is talking pure moonshine... Some day the knowledge we may gain may be of practical value, but there is no indication of it yet."

"It is just as surprising as if a gunner fired a shell at a single sheet of paper and for some reason or other the projectile bounded back again."

"It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."

"It is not in the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden violent discovery; science goes step by step, and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue, as it were—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man on another, and it is this mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem, and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected."

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."

"That which is not measurable is not science. — also attributed to Lord Kelvin"

"Don't let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my department."

"An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid."

"I know what the atom looks like!"

"When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life."

"I came into the room which was half-dark and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience, and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me. Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me."

"I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist."

"We're like children who always want to take apart watches to see how they work."

"We've got no money, so we've got to think."

"...Rutherford never spent more than £2500 a year on his research programme. He resisted suggestions that an industrial appeal might provide him with more money and he did not believe in the economic significance of any of the work he was doing. He used to boast that ‘we have no money, so we shall have to think’."

"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment."

"I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter."

"The first point that arises is the atom. I was brought up to look at the atom as a nice hard fellow, red or grey in colour, according to taste. In order to explain the facts, however, the atom cannot be regarded as a sphere of material, but rather as a sort of wave motion of a peculiar kind. The theory of wave-mechanics, however bizarre it may appear... has the astonishing virtue that it works, and works in detail, so that it is now possible to understand and explain things which looked almost impossible in earlier days. One of the problems encountered is the relation between the electron, an atom and the radiation produced by them jointly; the new mechanics states the type of radiation emitted with correct numerical relations. When applied to the periodic table, a competent and laborious mathematician can predict the periodic law from first principles."

"Rutherford's attitude to his own discoveries is illustrated by his response to a remark of one who was present at the moment of one of his great discoveries: "Rutherford, you are always on the crest of the wave." To which Rutherford responded: "I made the wave, didn't I?" Somehow from Rutherford's vantage point everything he said seems right, even including his remark, "I do not let my boys waste their time" when he was asked if he encouraged his students to study relativity! Rutherford was a happy warrior if ever there was one."

"In 2005, we had a couple of things going for us. First, of course, we knew how the experiment was supposed to come out. They had been out there in the blue. We also had faster, stronger, and more reliable equipment to pull vacuums, greatly reducing the results contaminated by the odd air molecule or hydrogen atom. But we, and the world, now know the deadly dangers of radioactivity. Rutherford used to toss bits of radioactive material in his pocket and then, before dinner, into the top drawer of his desk at home. ...If we tried to use what they used, we couldn't all be in this room... We couldn't be in the building."

"Rutherford's discovery was the beginning of the science that came to be called nuclear physics. ...The projectiles that he used to explore the nucleus were particles produced in the disintegration of radium... discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. The particles are helium nuclei that are emitted at high speed when radium atoms decay...The twenty years between 1909 and 1929 were the era of tabletop nuclear physics. ...Small and simple experiments were sufficient to establish the basic laws of nuclear physics."

"The switch from natural sources of particles to accelerators would start a new era in the history of science, the era of accelerator physics. ...The two men who actually built the first accelerator were John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, graduate students working... under the supervision of Rutherford. ...For five years they struggled to create a technology of big machines in a laboratory of tabletop experiments, just as the Wright brothers had struggled to create a technology of flying machines in a bicycle shop ....In April of 1932, they had a machine that produced a steady stream of hydrogen nuclei with an energy of about half a million volts. ...Walton was... ready to do the experiment... to bombard a target made of the light metal lithium. The result was spectacular. The lithium nuclei were split in two and fell apart into pairs of helium nuclei. The helium nuclei came out with thirty times as much energy as the hydrogen nuclei going in. ...Rutherford happily spent the rest of the day serving as Walton's assistant... That day, the era of tabletop nuclear physics ended and the era of big machines and big projects began."

"He died a year before the discovery of the fission of the uranium nucleus in Berlin in 1938, the discovery which turned nuclear physics into a big industry and a weapon of war."

"Rutherford did not pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but he understood that the Gamow formula would give his accelerator a crucial advantage. Even particles accelerated at much lower energies... would be able to penetrate into nuclei. Rutherford invited Gamow to Cambridge in January 1929... [They] became firm friends and Gamow's insight gave Rutherford the impetus to go full steam ahead with the building of his accelerator."

"One can hardly speak of being friendly with a force of nature."

"He seemed bored with his radio work. ...he had transmitted signals more than half a mile through Cambridge's stone builidings, and there was great interest in finding a way to use such signals in ship-to-shore communications... Some scientists, astonished at those demonstrations, believed that Rutherford's work in New Zealand and then at the Cavendish was actually ahead of the work being done by Guglielmo Marconi..."

"When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves. Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge."

"Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing."

"Authority in science exists to be questioned, since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow."

"It is not the laws of physics that make science possible but the unprovable proposition that there exists a grand design underlying the physical world. And not just any old "grand design" but one that is accessible to the limited senses and modest reasoning powers of the species to which we belong. Scientists subscribe with such conviction to this article of faith that they are willing to commit a lifetime to the pursuit of scientific discovery.It is hardly surprising that an activity so magical is also undefinable. Science is what scientists do. And what they do is look around themselves for messages written in the sky, the earth, the oceans and all living things – messages that tell of the unity of creation. These messages have been there – unseen, though at times written in letters miles high – since the dawn of history. But we have just passed through an epoch in which, quite suddenly, scientists seem to have learnt speed reading. Discoveries have been coming at an unprecedented pace. In the wake of such a period it is common to consider that we may be approaching the point where all that is readable in nature will have been read. We should be skeptical of such claims. Success in reading some messages brings with it a temporary blindness to others. We forget that between the words written in black in nature's book there are likely to be messages of equal importance written in white. It is a truism that success in science comes to the individuals who ask the right questions."

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done."

"I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory."

"Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas."

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."

"We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity."

"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child."

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."

"I believe international work is a heavy task, but that it is nevertheless indispensable to go through an apprenticeship in it, at the cost of many efforts and also of a real spirit of sacrifice: however imperfect it may be, the work of Geneva has a grandeur that deserves our support."

"I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery also has its beauty. Neither do I believe that the spirit of adventure runs any risk of disappearing in our world. If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity."

"Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research."

"I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy."

"There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth."

"I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries."

"Marie Curie was at heart a Baconian, boiling tons of crude uranium ore to demolish the dogma of the indestructibility of atoms."

"In the 1970s we were rediscovering women whose lives had been dropped out of history or distorted, like Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Emily Dickinson, Marie Curie, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Hannah Senesch, Ethel Rosenberg."

"Although born in a strongly Catholic country, at the age of 17 Marie Curie rejected all forms of religion, professing atheism and placing her trust solely in Enlightenment rationality and progress. She therefore adhered to Positivism, which became her mindset and guided her every action. Feminism found in her an icon of redemption and emancipation. Suffice it to say that in 1885, she went to the employment office to look for work, due to the financial difficulties her family was experiencing at the time, and found a job as a governess."

"Marie Curie made a detailed examination by the electrical method of the great majority of known substances, including the very rare elements, to see if they possessed any activity. In cases when it was possible, several compounds of the elements were examined. With the exception of and , none of the other substances possessed an activity even of the order of 1/100 of ."

"It seemed probable that the large activity of some of these minerals, compared with uranium and thorium, was due to the presence of small quantities of some very active substance, which was different from the known bodies thorium and uranium. This supposition was completely verified by the work of M. and Mme Curie, who were able to separate from pitchblende by purely chemical methods two active bodies, one of which in the pure state is over a million times more active than the metal uranium. This important discovery was due entirely to the property of radio-activity possessed by the new bodies. The only guide in their separation was the activity of the products obtained. ...The activity of the specimens thus served as a basis of rough qualitative and quantitative analysis, analogous in some respects to the indication of the spectroscope."

"The chief difficulty lay in the fact that pitchblende is a very complex mineral and contains in varying quantities nearly all the known metals. ...The analysis of pitchblende by chemical methods, using the procedure sketched above, led to the discovery of two very active bodies, polonium and radium. The name polonium was given to the first substance discovered by Mme Curie in honor of the country of her birth. The name radium was a very happy inspiration of the discoverers, for this substance in the pure state possesses the property of radio-activity to an astonishing degree."

"We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method."

"...when I started doing chemistry, I did it the way I fished – for the excitement, the discovery, the adventure, for going after the most elusive catch imaginable in uncharted seas."

"Chemists usually write about their chemical careers in terms of the different areas and the discrete projects in those areas on which they have worked. Essentially all my chemical investigations, however, are in only one area, and I tend to view my research not with respect to projects, but with respect to where I’ve been driven by two passions which I acquired in graduate school: I am passionate about the Periodic Table (and selenium, titanium and osmium are absolutely thrilling), and I am passionate about catalysis. What the ocean was to the child, the Periodic Table is to the chemist; new catalytic reactivity is, of course, my personal coelacanth."

"The discipline, nonetheless, is exacting: everything that can be observed should be observed, even if it is only recalled as the bland background from which the intriguing bits pop out like Venus in the evening sky. The goal is always finding something new, hopefully unimagined and, better still, hitherto unimaginable."

"The need for general scientific understanding by the public has never been larger, and the penalty for scientific illiteracy never harsher… Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate."

"Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's first interest was sparked by a teacher."

"It’s not even probable, let alone scientifically proven, that HIV causes AIDS. If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There are no such documents."

"People keep asking me, "You mean you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS?" And I say, "Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant! I have no scientific evidence for it." I might believe in God, and He could have told me in a dream that HIV causes AIDS. But I wouldn’t stand up in front of scientists and say, "I believe HIV causes AIDS because God told me." I’d say, "I have papers here in hand and experiments that have been done that can be demonstrated to others." It’s not what somebody believes, it’s experimental proof that counts. And those guys don’t have that."

"I once heard, and I think it is true, that only one man in the world—some Indian mathematician—understood the mathematics of string theory in eleven-dimensional space, and he dreamed it."

"Years from now, people will find our acceptance of the HIV theory of AIDS as silly as we find those who excommunicated Galileo."

"Recently I have gone back to church regularly with a new focus to understand as best I can what it is that makes Christianity so vital and powerful in the lives of billions of people today, even though almost 2000 years have passed since the death and resurrection of Christ. Although I suspect I will never fully understand, I now think the answer is very simple: it's true. God did create the universe about 13.7 billion years ago, and of necessity has involved Himself with His creation ever since. The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life. We are somehow critically involved in His purpose. Our job is to sense that purpose as best we can, love one another, and help Him get that job done."

"Could the search for ultimate truth really have revealed so hideous and visceral looking an object?"

"Gewönlich wird eine Entdeckung nicht auf den einfachsten, sondern auf einem komplizierten Wege gemacht; die einfachen Fälle zeigen sich erst später."

"Never has a Nobelprize-winner been in the outward sense so absent at a Nobel festival as Professor Hahn. And I suppose, too, that no Nobelprize-winner has ever, through the consequences of his discoveries, been so intensely present to our consciousness. Alfred Nobel hoped that in dynamite he had discovered such a powerful explosive that future wars would be impossible. The hope was not fulfilled; but dynamite is used today mostly for peaceful purposes. May we venture to hope the same of atomic energy? Hahn's discovery of the cleavage of atoms is the crowning feat, so far, in a series of discoveries for which Nobelprizes have been awarded. We acclaim today this celebrated researcher's scientific achievements."

"Otto Hahn is a figure of world history. But he possesses none of the attributes of the traditional luminaries in history books. His slight, somewhat bowed figure, which with its high brow has the effect of his features having been carved, with his expression of searching honesty and critical inviolability, have something of a boundless nobility about them."

"His father city Frankfurt am Main thus honours a scholar of worldwide fame, who, as a result of his trail-blazing discoveries in the sphere of atomic research, radioactivity and radiochemistry, enjoys a surpassing reputation in the world. The city at the same time stresses its bonds with a personality of exceptional talent and creative energy, whose scientific and administrative work serve progress and the well-being of the whole of humanity."

"Hahn and Strassmann were able to discover nuclear fission by exceptionally good chemistry, fantastically good chemistry, which was way ahead of what anyone else was capable of at that time. The Americans learned it to do later. But at that time, in 1938, Hahn and Strassmann were really the only ones who could do it, because they were such good chemists."

"Professor Meitner stated that nuclear fission could be attributed to chemistry. I have to make a slight correction. Chemistry merely isolated the individual substances, but did not precisely identify them. It took Professor Hahn's method to do this. This was his achievement."

"In postwar Germany, Otto Hahn became the most revered elder statesman of what had once been Europe's proudest scientific establishment. He collected many awards, including a Nobelprize in Chemistry for his discovery of fission. But he always accepted such honours with characteristic humility. Visiting an atomic reactor or nuclear power station, he would shrug modestly: 'It has all been the work of others.' In a soon-to-be-published 300-page memoir, he brushed off his historic workin fewer than five pages. Last week, at he age of 89, the father of fission died peacefully in his beloved Göttingen."

"Paris somehow lends itself to conceptual new ideas. I don't know why it is. There is a certain magic to that city."

"It is because I know all that science can bring to the world that I shall continue my efforts to ensure that it contributes to the happiness of all men, whether they be white, black, or yellow, and not to their annihilation in the name of some divine mission or other."

"Mathematical physics is in the first place physics and it could not exist without experimental investigations."

"I suppose that I should say a few words with respect to the possibility for future production and identification of additional transuranium elements, especially in view of the possibility of their production by heavy-ion bombardment of transuranium elements. As an aid to such a program the radioactive properties can be estimated, as I have already indicated, on the assumption of a smooth nuclear energy surface and the systematics of radioactivity. Again, I must emphasize that such considerations are negated in the event that a stable subshell of 148 neutrons should be found to exist, and this must be regarded as a definite possibility. It is interesting to note that our considerations on the systematics of spontaneous fission28 indicate that this method of decay will not compete seriously with radioactive decay until the region just beyond element 100. … These considerations illustrate clearly that one of the problems is that of conceiving means for producing nuclides of sufficiently high mass numbers with half-lives long enough for chemical identification. Thus, the serious problem is again the paucity of starting materials."

"There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician."

"To say that Seaborg had a high-profile career is an understatement. He is in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the longest entry in "Who's Who in America." … In 1944, Seaborg formulated the 'actinide concept' of heavy element electronic structure which predicted that the actinides – including the first eleven transuranium elements – would form a transition series analogous to the rare earth series of lanthanide elements. Called one of the most significant changes in the periodic table since Mendeleev's 19th century design, the actinide concept showed how the transuranium elements fit into the periodic table."

"The body of information assembled in Dr. Seaborg's laboratory has made it possible to predict the radioactive characteristics of many isotopes of elements still to be found. Under Dr. Seaborg's leadership, also, whole new bodies of methodology and instrumentation have been developed and have become a cornerstone of modern nuclear chemistry."

"Glenn Seaborg had a tremendous influence on me — both before and after I met him. Of course, as a nuclear chemist, I knew of his leadership in the legendary discovery of plutonium in 1941, the development of the actinide concept, his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1951, and the discovery of 8 more transplutonium elements by 1958. It was not until his tenure as chairman of the AEC (1961-71) that I actually began to learn first hand about the "real" person behind these awesome accomplishments. … The breadth of his interests, his skill in communicating with both scientists and the general public and press, and his energy in doing all this even while he was AEC chairman still boggles my mind! … I learned so many things from him just by observing how he ran the weekly brown bag lunches with his graduate students and later mine — listening with great interest as they described their research progress. He asked insightful and penetrating questions, but not in a threatening manner, made suggestions, and frequently went to visit the labs late in the day to see what was going on. He also hosted many undergraduate research students. He was devoted to education and student training and would prepare as carefully for lectures to freshman chemistry classes as for presentations to prestigious assemblages of scientists. Glenn was very concerned with history and had kept a diary or journal since he was eight years old. After his return to Berkeley from Washington in 1971, he continued the tremendous undertaking of putting them into book form, which occupied him and several helpers for many years. His journals also formed the basis for books on his years as chancellor at Berkeley, as chairman of the AEC, and many other topics. On the rare occasions that he did not remember something that one of us might ask about he would look it up in his journals. He had a fabulous memory and was able to synthesize and apply and keep track of what he knew so it could be applied to the situation at hand. One might almost say in the parlance of our time that he was a "parallel processor"! … In spite of his legendary accomplishments, Glenn Seaborg always had time for family members, colleagues, students, and even non-scientists who wanted to visit with him. We have lost a treasured advisor, colleague, mentor, resource, and friend. But he will live on through his prolific writings and in the cherished memories of the hosts of students, scientists, colleagues, and lay people that he influenced."

"Dr. Seaborg was a true giant of the 20th Century, a legend in the annals of scientific discovery. His daily commitment to matters of the laboratory, even in retirement as associate director-at-large and as an active researcher, was an inspiration to us all. … We who have been touched by his wisdom, his energy, and his tireless devotion to our profession will miss him."

"Would it not be better if one could really 'see' whether molecules...were just as experiments suggested?"

"One's tendency when one is young is to do experiments just to see what will happen, without really looking for specific things at all. I first set up a little laboratory in the attic at home just to grow crystals or try experiments described in books, such as adding a lot of concentrated sulfuric acid to the blood from a nosebleed which precipitates hemotin from the hemoglobin in the blood. That was quite a nice experiment. I still remember it."

"I once wrote a lecture for Manchester University called « Moments of Discovery » in which I said that there are two moments that are important. There's the moment when you know you can find out the answer and that's the period you are sleepless before you know what it is. When you've got it and know what it is, then you can rest easy."

"...the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air."

"I like teaching and the contact with young minds keeps one on one's toes."

"People who get Nobel prizes aren't necessarily the most imaginative of people. People who sometimes find a system, develop a system, do very useful work."

"In science, conjecture drives both experiment and theory for it is only by forming conjectures (hypotheses) that we can make the direction of our experiments and theories informed. If such and such is true, then I should be able to do this experiment and look for this particular result or I should be able to find this theoretical formulation. Conversely, experiment and theory drive conjecture. One makes a startling observation or has a sudden insight and begins to speculate on its significance and implications and to draw possible conclusions (conjecture)."

"As scientific men we have all, no doubt, felt that our work has been put often to base uses, which must lead to disaster. But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance. On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries. Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation. For them, such a charge is worse than that of crime."

"Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it."

"Some of the beliefs and legends bequethed to us by Antquity are so universally and firmly established that we have become accustomed to consider them as being almost as ancient as humanity itself. Nevertheless we are tempted to inquire how far the fact that some of these beliefs and legends have so many features in common is due to chance, and wether the similarity between them may not point to the exestience of an ancient, totally unknown and unsuspected civilization of which all other traces have disappeared."

"But I am leaving the regions of fact, which are difficult to penetrate, but which bring in their train rich rewards, and entering the regions of speculation, where many roads lie open, but where a few lead to a definite goal."

"Every discovery takes place in more than a scientific context."

"Sometimes one can improve the theories in the sense of discovering a quicker, more efficient way of doing a given calculation."

"Science is, on the whole, an informal activity, a life of shirt sleeves and coffee served in beakers."

"In general, the rate of evaporation (m) of a substance in a high vacuum is related to the pressure (p) of the saturated vapor by the equation m=\sqrt{\frac{M}{2\pi RT}}p. Red phosphorus and some other substances probably form exceptions to this rule."

"To me, [it's] extremely interesting that men, perfectly honest, enthusiastic over their work, can so completely fool themselves."

"Science, almost from its beginnings, has been truly international in character. National prejudices disappear completely in the scientist’s search for truth. Medicine also disregards national boundaries. And literature frequently rises to heights that make it international. The scientist is motivated primarily by curiosity and a desire for truth. His attitude is objective rather than subjective. In his work he finds great satisfaction in discovering new facts or new relationships between known facts, but even greater pleasure is derived from seeing his results incorporated into the body of scientific knowledge and from seeing them willingly used by others in the further development of science."

"History proves abundantly that pure science, undertaken without regard to applications to human needs, is usually ultimately of direct benefit to mankind. Within recent years it has become possible for purely scientific work of this character to be carried out with the support of industries, which are, of course, primarily interested in the commercial applications. The scientist who works in this way is frequently especially fortunate in that he not only derives the satisfactions which are characteristic of scientific work in general, but is able to see that many of his results are almost immediately put into a form which directly benefits mankind. Happy indeed is the scientist who not only has the pleasures which I have enumerated, but who also wins the recognition of fellow scientists and of the mankind which ultimately benefits from his endeavors. To my mind, the most important aspect of the Nobel Awards is that they bring home to the masses of the peoples of all nations, a realization of their common interests. They carry to those who have no direct contact with science the international spirit."

"Coherent behavior is the characteristic feature of biological systems."

"Given my interest in the concept of time, it was only natural that my attention was focused on the second principle, as I felt from the start that it would introduce a new, unexpected element into the description of physical world evolution. No doubt it was the same impression illustrious physicists such as Boltzmann and Planck would have felt before me. A huge part of my scientific career would then be devoted to the elucidation of macroscopic as well as microscopic aspects of the second principle, in order to extend its validity to new situations, and to the other fundamental approaches of theoretical physics, such as classical and quantum dynamics."

"My colleague Paul Glansdorff and I have investigated the problem as to if the results of near-equilibrium can be extrapolated to those of far - from-equilibrium situations and have arrived at a surprising conclusion: Contrary to what happens at equilibrium, or near equilibrium, systems far from equilibrium do not conform to any minimum principle that is valid for functions of free energy or entropy production."

"The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable, even on the scale of the billions of years during which prebiotic evolution occurred."

"The functional order maintained within living systems seems to defy the Second Law; nonequilibrium thermodynamics describes how such systems come to terms with entropy."

"The ideas of nonequilibrium order and of the search for stability extend Darwin’s concept back to the prebiotic stage by redefining the “fittest”."

"In an isolated system, which cannot exchange energy and matter with the surroundings, this tendency is expressed in terms of a function of the macroscopic state of the system: the entropy.”"

"We have seen that the formation and maintenance of self-organizing systems are compatible with the laws of physical chemistry.”"

"The evolution of a physicochemical system leads to an equilibrium state of maximum disorder."

"The problem of time in physics and chemistry is closely related to the formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. Therefore another possible title of this lecture could have been: “the macroscopic and microscopic aspects of the second law of thermodynamics”"

"It is a remarkable fact that the second law of thermodynamics has played in the history of science a fundamental role far beyond its original scope. Suffice it to mention Boltzmann’s work on kinetic theory, Planck’s discovery of quantum theory or Einstein’s theory of spontaneous emission, which were all based on the second law of thermodynamics"

"The denial of becoming by physics estranged science from philosophy... [and] became a dogmatic assertion directed against all those (chemists, biologists, physicians) for whom a qualitative diversity existed in nature... Today we believe that the epoch of certainties and absolute oppositions is over. Physicists belong to their culture, to which, in their turn, they make an essential contribution."

"Equilibrium thermodynamics was an achievement of the nineteenth century, nonequilibrium thermodynamics was developed in the twentieth century, and Onsager's relations mark a crucial point in the shift of interest away from equilibrium to non-equilibrium."

"Entropy is the price of structure"

"Whatever we call reality, it is revealed to us only through the active construction in which we participate."

"The threat lies in the realization that in our universe the security of stable, permanent rules are gone forever. We are living in a dangerous and uncertain world that inspires no blind confidence. Our hope arises from the knowledge that even small fluctuations may grow and change the overall structure. As a result, individual activity is not doomed to insignificance"

"We are at a very exciting moment in history, perhaps a turning point, said Ilya Prigogine, who won the 1977 Nobel prize for a theory that describes transformations, not only in the physical sciences but also in society—the role of stress and "perturbations" that can thrust us into a new, higher order. Science, he said, is proving the reality of a deep cultural vision. The poets and philosophers were right in their intimations of an open, creative universe. Transformation, innovation, evolution—these are the natural responses to crisis."

"Prigogine's great contribution lies in his successful development of a satisfactory theory of non-linear thermodynamics in states which are far removed from equilibrium. In doing so he has discovered phenomena and structures of completely new and completely unexpected types, with the result that this generalized, nonlinear and irreversible thermodynamics has already been given surprising applications in a wide variety of fields. Prigogine has been particularly captivated by the problem of explaining how ordered structures - biological systems, for example - can develop from disorder. Even if Onsager's relations are utilized, the classical principles of equilibrium in thermodynamics still show that linear systems close to equilibrium always develop into states of disorder which are stable to perturbations and cannot explain the occurrence of ordered structures."

"Prigogine was also concerned with the broader philosophical issues raised by his work. In the 19th century the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics, with its prediction of a relentless movement of the universe toward a state of maximum entropy, generated a pessimistic attitude about nature and science. Prigogine felt that his discovery of self-organizing systems constituted a more optimistic interpretation of the consequences of thermodynamics. In addition, his work led to a new view of the role of time in the physical sciences."

"The statistical probability that organic structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident, is zero."

"This is an honour that reflects the quality of science supported by the Medical Research Council, in particular at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. In my case, credit should go to the numerous dedicated postdocs, students, associates and colleagues who made crucial contributions to the work."

"In the current debate about immigration, it is worth noting that this award is yet another example of the numerous contributions that immigrants make to British society."

"Indeed, many of the founding members of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology were immigrants themselves, and they helped to revolutionise modern biology.""

"I think it is the ability to tackle difficult problems in a sort of stable and supportive environment. I think that is the real key to it."

"I was quite insistent. We have quite a few pranksters in the lab and I thought this was one of them. I even congratulated the man, ironically, on his Swedish accent."

"I knew the ribosome was going to be the focus of Nobel prizes. It stands at the crossroads of biology, between the gene and what comes out of the gene. But I had convinced myself I was not going to be a winner."

"I then got a PhD in physics [from Ohio University] though it was hatt hatt and hatt not a very good one."

"I remember reading a Scientific American article about the use of new physical techniques – including neutron scattering – as a method for unravelling the structure of the ribosome. I was fascinated. I knew ribosomes were a big fundamental problem in science and this was a method for chipping away at it."

"It takes a certain amount of courage to tackle very hard problems in science, I now realise. You don't know what the timescale of your work will be: decades or only a few years. Or your approach may be fatally flawed and doomed to fail. Or you could get scooped just as you are finalising your work. It is very stressful."

"If I had complained about the prize before I got mine, they may have thought I was anticipating sour grapes. But I complained on the grounds that too many important scientists get missed out for Nobels. Science today is a highly collaborative exercise and to convert it into a contest, as the Nobel does, is a bad way to look at science. On the other hand, I am grateful to the committee for my award. It put the study of ribosome – the cellular machine that turns the blueprint of life into life itself – on front pages round the world."

"You would have to ask a physicist really but I think understanding fundamental problems in physics is very important because they are part of our culture. You just never know what is going to come from it. If you had told Isaac Newton about spaceships and satellites that arise from his laws of gravity, it would have been science fiction to him."

"Find out what really fascinates you and follow that. Almost anything in nature, if you follow it, you will find a scientific problem. That is a better way to do it than following fads, because what is fashionable today may have been solved or fallen out of fashion once you have become a working scientist."

"Scientists are trained to be rational and we are not trained to interact with people and develop social skills. Politics is about being able to convince people. Scientists could do with learning how to do that."

"Scientists work by a combination of intuition and insight in trying to understand a question."

"No. Geeks make huge advances in society. Newton was the ultimate geek. It should be a compliment."

"People go into science out of curiosity, not to win awards. But scientists are human and have ambitions. Even the best scientists are often insecure and feel the need for recognition."

"A life of science struck me as being both interesting and international in character."

"Many in my family were ambivalent about it, but my mother encouraged me to put aside my fears. Vera (my wife) and I finally decided to leave Utah, where we were very happy, take a 40 per cent salary cut and move to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge."

"This reconnection...has given me great satisfaction. I realise I have inadvertently become a source of inspiration and hope for people in India simply by the fact that I grew up there, went to my local university, but could go on to do well internationally. The Nobel, he says, is not just an affirmation of his past work; it’s an encouragement to keep working on interesting problems."

"Last year, the lecture was held in [an auditorium] with a capacity for just 300 people, and half the seats were empty. “What has changed? I am still the same person doing the same science. Why are people so impressed when some academy in Sweden gives an award?"

"Dr. Ramakrishnan addressing an audience of 3,000 at the university’s Centenary Auditorium."

"That is the wrong question to ask…You can’t go into science thinking of a Nobel Prize. You can only go into science because you’re interested in it."

"The ribosome does amazing chemistry, but I’m not a chemist…I’ve just learnt enough to work on my problem."

"It’s not about where you were born, or where you come from that makes you a good scientist. What you need are good teachers, co-students, facilities, [he said]. I honestly don’t think my roots have much to do with it. I’m sure this won’t make me popular, but this is what I think."

"My own lab has two Chinese, a Malaysian, a Canadian, an American, a German, it has had all sorts of people. And it’s actually fun because people from different countries come together, they have cultural exchanges, they learn more about each others’ countries and way of life. Science is a great international mixer, so the idea that it is a sort of cricket match where our team won — that simply is a wrong way of looking at scientific discovery."

"It’s an absolutely good thing. I can think of one even better thing for young people, especially in India. It shows them you can study in India, get your basic education in India and you can (then) do whatever you want after that. That’s a very important message."

"Indians tend to be a little insecure and they should stop being insecure — I have visited India many times and I can tell you questions I get after my talks are as perceptive as anywhere else in the world, including places like Harvard or MIT. It’s perfectly fine to take pride that someone from their region has used their background and succeeded. That gives them a positive message that they can do anything that they want."

"Now many excellent scientists in India are doing really first rate work and it should not matter when the next Indian Nobel Prize is because they are doing very good work — that is what matters and the more you have this infrastructure, with good scientists within India, eventually someone will get a Nobel Prize for work done within India."

"There are already people who are world class in India, for example C.N.R. Rao (who has worked mainly in solid-state and structural chemistry). He is an example of how you can do first rate international work within India. So I would say to Indians — you have it within you to do this (in India)."

"Fundamental information about the workings of the cellular machinery at the atomic level and is already being exploited by pharmaceutical companies to make new, more effective antibiotics"

"It is fairly clear that American with recent foreign roots are overrepresented in any classification of Americans who have brought honour and recognition to the United States"

"It will rightly be asked: What is the synthetic principle on which this obviously highly important product of y-methylcyclopentenophenanthrene is built up in nature, and why is it that this particular type which, as founda tion of many substances indispensable to life and of extreme physiological and biological importance, plays such a vital role in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? However, the time has not yet come when we can give an answer to questions so fundamental and so important to an understanding of the workings of Nature. But I am firmly convinced that this problem - like all others - will eventually be solved."

"When a mixture of 1,3-butadiene and ethene is heated in the gas phase, a remarkable reaction takes place in which cyclohexene is formed by the simultaneous generation of two new carbon – carbon bonds. This is the simplest example of the Diels-Alder reaction, in which a conjugated diene adds to an alkene to yield cyclohexene derivatives. The Diels-Alder reaction is in turn a special case of the more general class of cycloaddition reactions between psystems, the products of which are called cycloadducts."

"A famous name has this peculiarity that it becomes gradually smaller especially in natural sciences where each succeeding discovery invariably overshadows what precedes."

"It is sometimes easier to circumvent prevailing difficulties [in science] rather than to attack them."

"Whereas the chemico-chemists always find in industry a beautiful field of gold-laden soil, the physico-chemists stand somewhat farther off, especially those who seek only the greatest dilution, for in general there is little to make with watery solutions."

"In that year [1874], Jacobus van’t Hoff and Joseph Le Bel added a third dimension to our ideas about organic compounds when they proposed that the four bonds of carbon are not oriented randomly but have specific spatial directions. Van’t Hoff went even further and suggested that the four atoms to which carbon is bonded sit at the corners of a regular tetrahedron, with carbon in the center."

"Chemists in the late 1800s knew that cyclic molecules existed, but the limitations on ring size were unclear. Although numerous compounds containing five-membered and six-membered rings were known, smaller and larger ring sizes had not been prepared, despite many efforts. A theoretical interpretation of this observation was proposed in 1885 by Adolf von Baeyer, who suggested that small and large rings might be unstable due to angle strain. … The data … show that Baeyer’s theory is only partially correct. Cyclopropane and cyclobutane are indeed strained, just as predicted, but cyclopentane is more strained than predicted, and cyclohexane is strain-free. Cycloalkanes of intermediate size have only modest strain, and rings of 14 carbons or more are strain-free. Why is Baeyer’s theory wrong? Baeyer’s theory is wrong for the simple reason that he assumed all cycloalkanes to be flat."

"The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies... Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood."

"I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science."

"Molecules that differ from each other by rotation about single bonds are called conformational isomers or conformers. Derek H. R. Barton (…) showed that the chemical and physical properties of complicated molecules can be interpreted in terms of their specific or preferred rotational arrangements and that a knowledge of the conformations of molecules is crucial to understanding the stereochemical basis of many reaction."

"Keep stupid, keep crazy. Knowledge begins with wonder. Success as a scientist is based on keen curiosity. If one wants to enjoy academic life, I would recommend him or her to be different."

"[...] knowledge is our greatest wealth and the love of others the most beautiful human value."

"Reasonably, all these [fossil fuel] investments are financial dead-ends or ecological disasters."

"To control global warming, only one solution: stop burning fossil fuels."

"Today, our developed nations live in opulence, excess and waste, with the consequences that our environment is degrading and the climate is wreaked."

"I think almost all people would think, if I have no common sense or common knowledge in such field, so that is completely disadvantage, but if someone wants to develop some completely new thing, if we are trying to deduce something from such common knowledge, that we will be just trying to develop some step but we have to jump up, so sometime, such kind of common knowledge will be an obstacle, because at that time, most of the chemists thought that it is completely impossible to ionise such big molecule like protein but at that time, at least, I was not a specialist so I can do anything."

"Probably up to university student, I was a completely shy guy and if I, for example, even in Japan, I had to give some talk in front of, for example 100 people, I would be completely upset and I couldn’t say anything, just ahh. But fortunately, my colleague at that time tried to teach me how to cope with such stress, so at first just try to say something in front of the colleagues and I did and so next step is to say something in front of my employees in my company, so next step is try to give a talk to the people in the conference. So, step by step I learn how to do in front of bigger and bigger number of people, so now I’m here."

"... it is obvious that creativity gives no merit in the absence of adequate basic knowledge. Accurate and undistorted knowledge is most important. It will be disastrous if one’s mind is preoccupied with incorrect or distorted preconceptions. The fundamental laws of science and chemistry are absolute and fully trustable. However, various theories, rules and hypotheses made on experiential bases are not laws; these should be trusted only with reservations, especially when studying an unusual phenomenon like bioluminescence."

"On a new derivation of Birkhoff's strong ergodic hypothesis he once remarked in exasperation: "To be any more immaculate they will have to begin sterilizing the paper as well as the theorem !""

"... he gave a seminar in Oxford about his ideas on liquid helium, but on this occasion even the theorists were baffled. Onsager's final comment in reply to a question was: "The results are not bad when you consider the enormity of the swindle which I have perpetrated!""

"Of the electroencephalogram he once remarked: "It is like trying to discover how the telephone system works by measuring the fluctuations in the electric power used by the telephone company.""

"There's a time to soar like an eagle and a time to burrow like a worm. It takes a pretty sharp cookie to know when to shed the feathers and (long pause) to begin munching the humus! (characteristic Onsager giggle)."

"There are a lot of folks, some quite talented, who arm themselves with methods and then go hunting for vulnerable problems; but to accept a problem on its own terms and then forge your own weapon--now that's real class!"

"They made the mistake there of assigning Onsager to the basic Chemistry I, II course. He just couldn't think at the level of a freshman. Frankly, he was fired. I won't say he was the world's worst lecturer, but he was certainly in contention. He was difficult to understand anyway, but he also had the habit of lecturing when his back was to the students and he was writing on the blackboard. To compound matters, he was a big man, and students had to peer round him just to try and see what was being written."

"In the days of Kepler and Galileo, it was fashionable to announce a new scientific result through the circulation of a cryptogram which gave its author priority and his colleagues headaches. Onsager is one of the few moderns who operates in this tradition."

"... a reluctance to publish anything except fully-polished work, combined with the habit of dropping valuable hints couched in gnomic terms. The obscurity of his utterances is not due to a desire to mislead; rather it is a result of an inability to appreciate the limitations of his hearers. To those who have been able to appreciate what he tries to say, he has been a source of deep stimulation."

"He had been warned that non-theoreticians would be present and that he should phrase his talk in not too technical language. He plunged, nevertheless, into the mathematics of spinor algebras. After about twenty minutes, one of the many experimentalists in the audience had the courage to ask him what a spinor was. Onsager replied, thoughtfully: "A spinor--no, a set of spinors--is a set of matrices isomorphic to the orthogonal group." With that he gave the famous Onsager grin, twinkled his Nordic blue eyes at the bewildered faces around him, and continued the lecture as if nothing had happened."

"Onsager regarded chess, so he said, as too much like real problem-solving to spend much time on it. When he wanted to unwind from his work he would play solitaire, and bridge was a good relaxation in company."

"... when asked by Longworth how he would explain the electrophoretic effect in "physical terms," he picked up Longsworth, chair and all, and carried him across the room."

"One day Onsager told him he had decided to try an experiment on the separation of isotopes by thermal diffussion. "Fine," said Kraus, and was doubly pleased when Lars told him that the only equipment he would need was a long tube. But his encouragement was quickly withdrawn when Onsager explained that the tube must be made of platinum and would have to stretch from the basement to the third floor of the chemistry building. Kraus never pestered him again about doing an experiment, which "was too bad," writes Julian Gibbs, "because no one succeeded in conducting this experiment until more than a decade later, when it was needed as part of the Manhattan Project for the atomic bomb.""

"Pauli judging the World War II period in physics wrote in a letter to Casimir: “Nothing much of interest has happened except for Onsager’s exact solution of the Two-Dimensional Ising Model.”"

"In 1944, E. Onsager produced, quite unexpectedly, an exact evaluation of the partition function of the model in two dimensions. It was a real tour de force. I had studied his paper in Chicago in the spring of 1947, but did not understand the method, which was very, very complicated, with many algebraic somersaults... I was thus led to a long calculation, the longest in my career. Full of local, tactical tricks, the calculation proceeded by twists and turns. There were many obstructions. But always, after a few days, a new trick was somehow found that pointed to a new path... after about six months of work off and on, all the pieces suddenly fitted together, producing miraculous cancellations, and I was staring at the amazingly simple final result[, the spontaneous magnetization of the ising model.]"

"Arriving in the States, I had the feeling of being thrown into an ocean. The ocean was full of knowledge, culture and opportunities, and the choice was clear: I could either learn to swim or sink."

"The culture was foreign, the language was difficult, but my hopes were high."