“My own beliefs are that the road to a scientific discovery is seldom direct, and that it does not necessarily require great expertise.”
In fact, I am convinced that often a newcomer to a field has a great advantage because he is ignorant and does not know all the complicated reasons why a particular experiment should not be attempted.
Nobel lecture (1973)
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Ivar Giaever5
Norwegian physicist 1929Related quotes
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist
‘Hypothesis and Imagination’ in The Art of the Soluble, 1967.
1960s
“To make a discovery is not necessarily the same as to understand a discovery.”
Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist
Not only Planck but also other physicists were initially at a loss as to what the proper context of the new postulate really was.
Referring to the difficulties physicists experienced understanding the discovery that energy exchange is quantized, in Inward Bound : Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (1988), p. 134
“Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure.”
Albert Bandura book Self-Efficacy
[Self-efficacy: The exercise of control, Bandura, Albert, w:Albert Bandura, 1997, W. H. Freeman, New York, 9780716728504, http://books.google.com/books?id=eJ-PN9g_o-EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bandura+isbn:9780716728504&hl=en&ei=HAwYTbKsLpTmsQPp8cCPCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false] (p. 77)
Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 214.
“The next revolution in scientific discovery will depend on scientific interdependence.”
Robert J. Birgeneau (1942) Canadian physicist
A modern public university, Nature Materials 6, 465 - 467 (01 Jul 2007), doi: 10.1038/nmat1935, Commentary.
Bruno de Finetti (1906–1985) Italian mathematician
Preface
Theory of Probability (1970)