Alfred Hershey Quotes

The way to solve problems in the world is to become scientists and technologists and build things that haven't been built before and discover things that people really don't know about.

The first time you do something, it's science. The second time, it's engineering. The third time, it's just being a technician. I'm a scientist. Once I do something, I want to do something else.

As I see it, whoever's doing the inventing is also doing most of the learning - and probably having most of the fun.

As soon as science has solved one problem, new ones arise. This is the essence of science, and it applies, of course, also to the field of essential oils.

I have the instruments, ideas, technology, computer techniques. We try to create or see something, which has not been known before - just to discover something together. This is always my dream.

Research is creating new knowledge.

What makes our world so fascinating is that continuously there are novel and creative ideas spurring people to leave old ways and try something new.

If people like Edison had waited to make every - or Ben Franklin or some of those people had waited to solve every problem on Earth before they did their research or before they were curious about doing something new, we'd never have made a lot of the progress we have.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

I think the scientific goals and the technical challenges were the two things that equally motivated me.

Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles.

I'm sort of an experimenter; I thought it'd be interesting to play around and see what's there.

In trying to make something new, half the undertaking lies in discovering whether it can be done. Once it has been established that it can, duplication is inevitable.

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

This is largely the methodology I've used throughout my career - that is, starting with a question as to what might be the properties of a set of compounds that could be invented which were unusual and unpredictable. Many times I've felt a bit like Columbus setting sail.

Fundamental research is needed to make progress, which you cannot do solely by copying others. If you only do applied research, you quickly lose creativity.

Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.

I enjoy science, and I'm a very curious person. I always want to know the reason behind everything, big or small.

The thing I love about science is finding out something new and different.

I'm more interested in what I discover than what I invent.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

Well, it seems to me a scientist has need for both vision and confidence.

I think we always move from imitation to assimilation to innovation, but I can't name you 20 people outside those we've already recognized who ever got to point three: innovation.

I think that's something a scientist can do because a scientist works at a border, at the edge of science, at the edge of knowledge, and so there's a lot of fun of reaching out and thinking about things that other people didn't think about. And so it has a kind of exploratory notion, kind of adventurous part in it.