"I seriously say to you that business or job as an engineer is not the thing for me. It is totally foreign to my nature and radically opposed to my temperament and opinions. Physics is my line. I know I shall do great things here. For, each man can do best and excel in only that thing of which he is passionately fond, in which he believes, as I do, that he has the ability to do it, that he is in fact born and destined to do it... I am burning with a desire to do physics. I will and must do it sometime. It is my only ambition. I have no desire to be a "successful" man or the head of a big firm. There are intelligent people who like that and let them do it. … It is no use saying to Beethoven "You must be a scientist bybye for it is great thing" when he did not care two hoots for science; or to Socrates "Be an engineer; it is work of intelligent man." It is not in the nature of things. I therefore earnestly implore you to let me do physics."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Letter to his father, expressing his desire to study physics instead of mechanical engineering, as his father had wanted. His father agreed, on the condition that Bhabha pass the Mechanical Engineering Tripos with first class. He did that, and later passed the mathematical Tripos with First class too, as quoted in the "Homi Jehangir Bhabha" profile at the Vigyan Prasar Science Portal.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Homi J. Bhabha
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist and the chief architect of the Indian atomic energy program. He was also responsible for the establishment of two well-known research institutions, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay, which after Bhabha's death was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). As a scientist, he is remembered for deriving a correct expression for the
5 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Homi J. Bhabha →
Related Quotes
"I know quite clearly what I want out of my life. Life and my emotions are the only things I am conscious of. I love t…"
"There is at the moment in India no big school of research in the fundamental problems of physics, both theoretical an…"
"I feel that we in India are apt to believe that good scientific institutions can be established by Government decree …"
"My success will not depend on what A or B thinks of me. My success will be what I make of my work."
"If someone who matters to you takes you down, it can break you. That someone whose approval mattered to me started to…"
"I am a person with a lot of faith and I have conversations [with God] all the time but I am not so religious in the c…"
"There was a complete lack of conviction on my part. Just playing myself doesn't excite me, which is why I thought I c…"
"I did not set out to break stereotypes."
"My work is an extension of the person I am and of my beliefs."
"I follow my instincts. Sometimes it works commercially and sometimes it doesn’t, but I don’t regret a single film."