Ahmed H. Zewail Quotes

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. So, that's my intention to focus my efforts there and I hope I will be able to do so.

I came from Egypt and I owe Egypt a lot to what I am now.

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. 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.

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.

When I give a lecture on Egypt there are thousands of people in the lecture hall, so obviously they would like to go to science and they would love to do science, but you really have to get the correct science base in order for them to interact.

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. As a child, I thought I was immortal, but now I recognize how limited a time we all have. As a child, success meant scoring A on every exam, but now I take it to mean good health, close family and friends, achieve- ments in my work, and helping others.

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.

Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.

I do feel quite strongly about this that probably one of the things that unfortunately this age now to get a Nobel Prize is to really use part of it to help the young people get excited about science.

There is a danger one has to really be knowing much more because you can't be too narrow on science.

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.

For me to sit down here, even as a Nobel Laureate and make a prediction about which science I think that will be a mistake.

I thought in my Nobel Lecture I pointed that I was delighted that the Swedish Academy of Science did not quote anything about my current work right now, because the current work that my group is focusing on is actually both the time resolve 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.

Think about the whole world of biological complex sciences. We still don't understand the way a protein folds the way it does.

Interestingly, this was the only incident of blatant prejudice that I can

remember. But I am aware that such opinions exist in human beings, and

it's not a question of being Egyptian or being an Arab or being a Muslim.

One could be a Christian against a Jew or a Jew against a Christian, or a

white against a black, or a man against a woman. My philosophy is not

to let such attitudes stop me from what I want to do. I don't take it very

seriously, although as you can see, I remember the incident very well.

The point was I had to get on with my work and had to behave properly,

and in the process perhaps even change the opinion of these people. But

on the other hand, if I did nothing but complain and feel sorry for myself,

then I wouldn't get anywhere.

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