Philip Emeagwali Quotes

As a boy, it was clear that my inclinations were toward the physical sciences. Mathematics, mechanics, and chemistry were among the fields that gave me a special satisfaction.

I've always liked all the sciences, like math, physics and biology.

I was always very strong in math, physics and calculus.

I was never strong at maths, but I eventually got onto a university physics/astronomy course, and that led on to my Ph.D. and eventual employment.

My interests started about in science and in mathematics; I always thought I was going to be a mathematician.

All phenomena] are equally susceptible of being calculated, and all that is necessary, to reduce the whole of nature to laws similar to those which Newton discovered with the aid of the calculus, is to have a sufficient number of observations and a mathematics that is complex enough.

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.

Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third.

Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists.

Brian and I were both science students. You know science sort of math and physics side, you know.

The correct statement of the laws of physics involves some very unfamiliar ideas which require advanced mathematics for their description. Therefore, one needs a considerable amount of preparatory training even to learn what the words mean.

I was so pleased to be at university to do physics and mathematics.

I was useless at science. I was never going to be an astrophysicist.

I was good at math, math was my thing - but I was not nearly good enough to be an astrophysicist. I was way outta my league. I realized this very quickly.

Later in the fifties I got involved in kinetic studies using my long forgotten math background.

I found it stimulating to study the sciences. It was a side of understanding the universe that I hadn't been exposed to.

Well, I'm leaning probably toward the sciences like physics.

In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.

I'm not a scientist or a mathematician.

The standard high school curriculum traditionally has been focused towards physics and engineering. So calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra have always been the most emphasized, and for good reason - these are very important.

Deep down inside, I'm a science geek.

While I was there, Voyager flew by Saturn. I got involved with a person who was a member of the imaging team and started working on data from Saturn. With all that data coming in, the imaging team didn't have enough hands or scientists to work on all of it.

We do a lot of science on the space station. Over the course of the year, there'll be 400 to 500 different investigations in all different kinds of disciplines. Some are related to improving life on earth in material science, physics, combustion science, earth sciences, medicine.

It seemed to me that NASA, especially Goddard, was the place where I could carry out the dreams that I had, which were to push forward an experiment that would measure the big bang radiation better than anyone had ever tried before. Therefore, it seemed like the perfect place to go.

I wanted to be an astronomer until I discovered I'm terrible at math.