“There are 15 main theories in physics, and we know all of them. If the...” — Ivar Giaever Quote

There are 15 main theories in physics, and we know all of them. If there weren't a finite number of theories, there would not be a point to physics.

If I have learned anything as a scientist, it is that one should not make things complicated when a simple explanation will do.

If you want to help Africa, you should help them out of poverty, not try to build solar cells and windmills.

I don't really know what the future of science is. Maybe we have come to the end of science; maybe science is a finite field. The inventions resulting from this finite field, however, are boundless.

Science is to find something unknown, while invention is to make something new out of the known theory.

I'm the son of an everyman. My father is a teacher. He teaches physics at a boys' school in Sydney.

Politics is a lot tougher than physics.

I think my father, who was Chinese, basically felt if we didn't major in science, we would starve on the streets, so we all went into science unquestioningly. I kind of faked my way through physics.

It was only in the second year of my Ph.D. that I started acting. I wasn't in school plays or anything; I was in bands, but I wasn't cool. There's no such thing as a cool physics person, is there?

If you miss one day in physics, that's it.