Wednesday 5 October 2011

discoveries today are really not expected

From the telephone interview with Dan Shechtman, the winner of The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011:

Q: What do you think your experience of discovering quasicrystals taught you about science?

A: Oh, it taught me... This is a very good question! You know, it taught me that a good scientist is a humble scientist, somebody who is willing to listen to news in science which are not expected. Because discoveries today are really not expected – if they were expected they would have been discovered a long time ago. So something new, that is forbidden by some laws... people have to listen to this. In most cases, the news is not really news. But in some cases, discoveries are made and should be listened to.