If you want to do good research, it's important not to know too much. This almost sounds contradictory but really if you know too much and you get an idea, you will sort of talk yourself out of trying it because you figure it won't work. But if you know just the right amount and you get enthusiastic about your project, you go ahead, you do it and if you're lucky things'll work out.

Ivar Giaever

Categorized in : Ideas Trying Work Out

I'm a skeptic. ...Global Warming it's become a new religion. You're not supposed to be against Global Warming. You have basically no choice. And I tell you how many scientists support that. But the number of scientists is not important. The only thing that's important is if the scientists are correct; that's the important part.

Ivar Giaever

support choices numbers

Is climate change pseudoscience? If I'm going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely.

Ivar Giaever

pseudoscience climate answers

To me the greatest moment in an experiment is always just before I learn whether the particular idea is a good or a bad one. Thus even a failure is exciting, and most of my ideas have of course been wrong.

Ivar Giaever

failure moments ideas

Incontrovertible is not a scientific word. Nothing is incontrovertible in science.

Ivar Giaever

technology science

In the APS (American Physical Society) it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period.'

Ivar Giaever

average mean years

I am a skeptic...Global warming has become a new religion.

Ivar Giaever

skeptic global-warming climate-change

Global warming has become a new religion. We frequently hear about the number of scientists who support it. But the number is not important: only whether they are correct is important. We don't really know what the actual effect on the global temperature is. There are better ways to spend the money.

Ivar Giaever

better support money religion

There are just two things you can do to win a Nobel prize - have a good idea and pursue it effectively.

Ivar Giaever

things good win you

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.

Ivar Giaever

them point know physics

When I was 28 years old, I found myself in Schenectady, New York, where I discovered that it was possible for some people to make a good living as physicists.

Ivar Giaever

some-people good myself people

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

Ivar Giaever

will things i-have-learned simple

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.

Ivar Giaever

road i-am great my-own

While classical mechanics correctly predicts the behavior of large objects such as tennis balls, to predict the behavior of small objects such as electrons, we must use quantum mechanics.

Ivar Giaever

predict small tennis behavior

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.

Ivar Giaever

end know future science

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

Ivar Giaever

find new something science

Understanding truth is the primary objective of science, not doing good for the world.

Ivar Giaever

good truth science world

I would say that, basically, global warming is a non-problem.

Ivar Giaever

global would say global-warming

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

Ivar Giaever

africa try you poverty

If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.

Ivar Giaever

here wrong you heaven

You need to be curious, competitive, creative, stubborn, self-confident, skeptical, patient and be lucky to win a Nobel.

Ivar Giaever

win you lucky creative