Ahmed Zewail Quotes

America was and still is able to make the necessary changes to maintain research institutions that are the envy of the world.

Throughout history, when societies have been faced with big challenges, they've put their best people on them. During the Space Race, American and Russian scientists, engineers, astronauts and cosmonauts pushed the bounds of what was possible and landed men on the moon.

America was probably Europe's equal scientifically by the end of World War I and certainly surpassed it after the chaos of World War II.

In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science - really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.

In this time of budget cuts, we cannot forget that basic science is a building block for scientific innovation and economic growth in the information age.

In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.

If we hadn't put a man on the moon, there wouldn't be a Silicon Valley today.

The partisanship surrounding space exploration and the retrenching of U.S. space policy are part of a more general trend: the decline of science in the United States. As its interest in science wanes, the country loses ground to the rest of the industrialized world in every measure of technological proficiency.

American greatness was elevated significantly after Sputnik.

We didn't go to the moon to explore or because it was in our DNA or because we're Americans. We went because we were at war and we felt a threat.

If it hadn't been for the Cold War, neither Russia nor America would have been sending people into space.

The decline in funding for the physical sciences has put our Nation's capabilities for scientific innovation at risk.

The United States needs to be a leader in scientific research.

Many of our advances in science and technology were seeded through government.

It is absolutely key that funding is used to support the best scientists with the best ideas.

America has had the best university system in the world for a long time. And so we have been innovators, not only in the discoveries as proven by Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics and that sort of thing, but we've been able to put that into practical application with new gadgets that people admire.

America put more money into research, into the new and the unknown than any nation in history, and the same thing with education, and those two things led us into a worldwide preeminence in a very short period of time.

The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

In the 1950s, the average person saw science as something that solved problems. With the advent of nuclear weapons and pollution, the idealistic aura around scientific research has been replaced by cynicism.

Postwar U.S. was the world's leader in science and technology. The investment in science research was staggering.

The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy's speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation.

I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.

People who, like me, grew up in the 1950s and 1960s after World War II, grew up with cars.

The role of the federal government is to make sure enough research dollars flow into … universities to help create the ideas that 10 or 15 years from today will be exciting products.

Aid in perfecting the processes of economical mining and indefinitely increase the production of the precious metals and coin, the liberal assistance of the Government and of Science ought to be involved and it will be given.