Ahmed H. Zewail · 304 pages
Rating: (254 votes)
“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.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“I don't know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“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”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“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.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“in my first American
class—a freshman chemistry class during the 1969-70 academic year—
they looked at me as though I was supposed to be their nurse because
they were paying a stiff tuition. That's another concept I had to learn—
in American private schools we worked for them because they paid the
tuition, but in Egypt we were educating them.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“Egypt is the gift of the Nile, as the Greek historian Herodotus said many centuries ago, in about 450 BC.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“The prefix milli comes from Latin (and French for “thousandth”), micro and nano from Greek (for “small” and “dwarf respectively), and pico from Spanish (for “small”). Femto is Scandinavian, the root of the word for “fifteen” (femten)—nuclear physicists call a femtometer, the unit for the dimensions of atomic nuclei, a fermi. Attosecond, the next smaller unit, 10-18 second, uses a prefix also derived from Scandinavian, from the word for “eighteen.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize
“Don't you see that Americans need the anti-American? While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also better to be hated than ignored.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, quote from The Sympathizer
“Gabril’s voice was strong and sure. “I believe in you, and I’ve fought for you, because in a world full of people who crumble before an evil too terrifying to comprehend, you put up your fists and fight.”
― C.J. Redwine, quote from The Shadow Queen
“From time to time, we hear physicists claim that Einstein didn’t understand Quantum Mechanics and therefore wasted his time with naive classical theories. I very much doubt that this is true. His arguments against Quantum Mechanics were extremely subtle, culminating in one of the most profound and most cited papers in all of physics.12 My guess is that Einstein was disturbed by the same thing that bothered the slow student. How could the ultimate theory of reality be about nothing more concrete than our own degree of surprise at the outcome of an experiment?”
― Leonard Susskind, quote from The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics
“All children, except one, grow up.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan (Illustrated with Interactive Elements)
“Do you know what I miss the most? That night.”
My heart skips a beat, aching in sudden sadness. “And what about the girl you once sat beside, on that night? Do you miss her too?”
“She is still here,” he answers. “That is why I stay.”
― Marie Lu, quote from The Midnight Star
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