Kenneth G. Wilson Quotes

I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research.

How much further beyond basic research the role of the government should be, you could have a really good debate about it. Almost nobody would say it's zero. But that's where at least we need the private sector to play a big role.

If you don't invest in basic research at some stage you start losing the basis of applied research.

Now the main areas of higher education that still enjoy considerable financial support from government are subjects like engineering and science and the research ringfence which is the basic minimum to protect Britain's scientific competitiveness.

We've got to move beyond the idea that the public and private sectors are at odds. Government has to lay the groundwork for private equity to productively invest in things like education. It's a partnership, not a battle.

Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it.

We need to show why the government should be funding science and how that funding delivers.

Government support is not only investing in upstream areas like basic research, but also in downstream areas like applied research and early-stage financing for the companies themselves. This means there are great risks.

Research is one of the Nation's very greatest resources and the role of the Federal Government in supporting and stimulating it needs to reexamined.

The publicity of the Nobel Prize has made clear that the research work connected with the Quantum Hall Effect was so successful because a tremendous large number of institutions and individuals supported this activity.

The U.S. economy and workers benefit from a strong, healthy relationship between government and business.

We've already gotten a significant grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a university consortium. I think the whole sector of Foundations, potentially with government support, is promising - more than promising, I think, it's substantial.

If I could snap my fingers and do one thing in science, I would get more funding for basic science. But the level of funding that needs to be done is not on the order of millions, like the cost of the Breakthrough Prizes. It's billions to tens of billions.

The links have to be between universities, R&D institutes, and industry. If these linkages are in place, it will result in products that are useful for society. The government has to leverage the money it spends on R&D to help develop new products useful for industry.

The strength of the scientific establishment in any country is related to its general level of education, not only in supplying large numbers of eager minds for further training, but also in ensuring a public opinion that holds science in esteem and approves financial support.

The chances of Israeli science competing with big American science are small. For almost 15 years, we had no competition.

Personally, I attach great importance to research in fundamental sciences because I believe that no applied or developmental research can do without basic research as the wellspring and driving force. But, in this world of ours, often because of material gains and immediate interests, it is easy to neglect basic research. This should be avoided.

I'm very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

despite its apparent impracticality, the Administration values discovery-oriented science, and aims to continue to support the grand quest for knowledge about the universe at the largest and smallest scales.

It was only through the Government's help that anything this gargantuan in size could be accomplished, much as landing on the Moon. It was not rugged individualists who built the railroad, it was rugged corporations who formed and financed themselves as entities. It was the rugged federal government that came up with the federal loans, and the land grants, that enabled it to be built. Amid all the romance of building the railroad we tend to forget that it was one of the major industrial enterprises of its age.

Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.

This is an appropriate role for the federal government - to invest in basic research.

So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?

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

If I had a weak ego, and doubts about this, the first genome would not yet have been completed with US and UK government funding.