chemists-from-india

"Dharma is as fundamental to our existence as its converse in the physical world, the Second Law of Thermodynamics which governs the progression of things from order to randomness. Like the Second Law there will be many definitions of Dharma."

"Hindutva is the single Sanskrit word that attempts to capture the instinctive nature of Bharatiya nationalism that Savarkar tried to define analytically and Ambedkar to articulate emotionally. ... Hindutva is nothing less or nothing more than feeling like a Hindu. ... Hindutva is a philosophy that can guide Bharat in this civilizational battle, a battle which she inherited through the misguided policies of our successive governments."

"It is critical to note that in a nation-state the people take their cue from the Constitution whereas in a civilizational state the Constitution flows from the nature of the people. In the latter, the Constitution is an outcome of national identity and not the rationale for it."

"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"

"I have been working in the area of solid state chemistry for nearly four decades. When I first got seriously interested in the subject in the early 1950s it was still in in infancy. Very few chemists , let alone others, recognized solid state chemistry as an integral part of the main-stream chemistry . In spite of such benign tolerance, solid state chemistry has gradually emerged to become a crucial component of modern solid state and material science."

"Fifty years is a very long period. The first 30–35 years – we could call this period as one when India equipped itself to face important problems. For example, we built institutions such as the IITs and the National Laboratories...We need much better infrastructure facilities and we must work on more difficult problems. Unfortunately, we have been used to working on problems that are somewhat repetitive. If we want to be at the cutting edge, we have to be innovators and originators."

"Since I set up the Unit, the area of solid state chemistry is no longer called so but is called chemistry of materials.This subject has become important. I set up this Unit in Bangalore much before the subject became important in the world. Now chemistry has two major directions:chemical biology and materials chemistry."

"I feel basic science is getting its due now. I used to say earlier that Dr Homi Bhabha should get this honour and also some other eminent researchers. Scientists work very, very had but rarely get recognition. I have been working for 62 years. I was 17 when I started my research. I am going to be 80 soon."

"Prof Rao said he visited the Nobel prize-winning scientist’s (C.V.Raman} laboratory in Bengaluru first as an 11 year-old school boy. “He was the first to recognize my interest in science and has given me a lot of encouragement. He made me a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences when I was only 30. I can never be equal to him."

"My hero is Nobel Laureate Neville Mott who published four papers at the age of 92 when he died."

"Music for me is therapeutic."

"Nanoparticles constitute a major class of nanomaterials. Nanoparticles are zero-dimensional, possessing nonmetric dimensions in all three dimensions."

"I feel the Indian industry should contribute to help the government towards scientific research. The government alone can't do it. As of now, there's nothing. I have been into research for about 40 years. In the US, 50 to 60 per cent of the research and development (R&D) cost would be covered by the industry. There is a need for the same here and the industry needs to do it. Earlier, the industry in India didn't feel the need to do research. They could sell anything. Now, it wants to compete with the likes of South Korea and Japan, but they can't. We need to change this or the industry can't compete."

"Also, we need to give importance to value systems to promote innovation. We need to develop an ecosystem of innovation and technology will arrive soon. Of the 140 nations rated for innovation, India stood at a lowly 66. We need new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. We cannot be doing the same things. Jugaad (a temporary solution) is one of them. The atmosphere itself should encourage innovation."

"Our society has created a bunch of icons and role models who are distorting not just the future of this city [Bangalore] but of all India, and of our sense of values. Our people have lost respect for scholarship. Money and commerce has taken over. If IT is going to take away our basic values, then you can burn Bangalore and burn IT."

"Philosophers of ancient Greece and India sought an answer to this question [What is matter made of] centuries before Christ."

"The only part of the early concept of the elements that has survived is that elements have distinctive properties."

"An element is a substance which cannot be further reduced to a simpler substance by ordinary processes, and is made up of particles of one kind only."

"It is only since 1911 that we know that atoms contain negatively charged electrons and positively charged nuclei."

"Atoms were originally proposed as an idea. Although their presence was proved by various means, people did not think that they could see them directly. This was so until recently. We are now able to directly see atoms by employing powerful microscopic techniques."

"Man’s search for metals goes back to prehistoric times. Metals have been used for several thousands of years in India. Certain periods in history are associated with specific periods used extensively during that period"

"The famous iron pillar in Delhi, erected in the Gupta period (over 1500 years ago), is a marvel. After all these years this pillar stands erect without deterioration. This rustless iron pillar is a tribute to the great ingenuity of our forefathers."

"Substances can exist in three states – gas, liquid and solid. Water exists in all three states: gas (steam or water vapour), liquid (ordinary water) and solid (ice}. Properties of gases, liquids and solids are different."