Dorothy Hodgkin Quotes

Dorothy Hodgkin: 3 quotes1 like

Famous Dorothy Hodgkin Quotes

“Would it not be better if one could really 'see' whether molecules…were just as experiments suggested?”

the question that decided her to specialize in X-ray cristallography, as quoted by [Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize women in science: their lives, struggles, and momentous discoveries, Joseph Henry Press, 1998, http://books.google.com/books?id=-PqK3zxkRrIC&pg=PA231, 0-309-07270-0, 231]

“There's the moment when you know you can find out the answer and that's the period you are sleepless before you know what it is. When you've got it and know what it is, then you can rest easy.”

Dorothy Hodgkin

interviewed by
Context: I once wrote a lecture for Manchester University called « Moments of Discovery » in which I said that there are two moments that are important. There's the moment when you know you can find out the answer and that's the period you are sleepless before you know what it is. When you've got it and know what it is, then you can rest easy.

“One's tendency when one is young is to do experiments just to see what will happen, without really looking for specific things at all. I first set up a little laboratory in the attic at home just to grow crystals or try experiments described in books, such as adding a lot of concentrated sulfuric acid to the blood from a nosebleed which precipitates hemotin from the hemoglobin in the blood. That was quite a nice experiment. I still remember it.”

Dorothy Hodgkin

interviewed by [Olivia Cox-Fill, For our daughters: how outstanding women worldwide have balanced home and career, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, http://books.google.com/books?id=UBqr_MEn4m4C&printsec=frontcover#PPA171,M1, 0-275-95199-5, 171]