Yves Chauvin Quotes

What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one.

No matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, basic research has proven over and over to be the lifeline of practical advances in medicine.

Over the years, a number of other intriguing experimental ideas and areas of investigation have been the objects of my attention, and I have devoted some time and effort to exploring the inherent possbilities.

The ideas of science germinate in a matrix of established knowledge gained by experiment; they are not lonesome thoughts, born in a rarified realm where no researcher has ever gone before.

The work I was involved in had no obvious therapeutic benefit. It was purely of scientific interest. I hope the country will continue to support basic research even though it may have no obvious practical value.

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

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.

Whilst worthy in themselves, applications shouldn't be the only way to drive basic research.

People doing the kind of sound research that I'm interested in still have a difficult time.

Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied research; to me, it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature.

It is mistaken to claim that global problems will be solved more quickly if only researchers would abandon their quest to understand the universe and knuckle down to work on an agenda of public or political concerns. These are not 'either/or' options - indeed, there is a positive symbiosis between them.

My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.

Like any decent researcher, I throw away 90% of my research.

About 1960, it became clear that it was best for me to bring the experimental part of my research program to a close - there was too much to do on the theoretical aspects - and I began the process of winding down the experiments.

All research scientists know that writing in the passive voice is artificial; they are not disembodied observers, but people doing research.

The research I have been doing - studying how foodstuffs yield energy in living cells - does not lead to the kind of knowledge that can be expected to give immediate practical benefits to mankind. If I have chosen this field of study, it was because I believed in its importance in spite of its theoretical character.

We have this very clean picture of science, you know, these well-established rules with which we make predictions. But when you're really doing science, when you're doing research, you're at the edge of what we know.

If you are a researcher, you are trying to figure out what the question is as well as what the answer is.

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.

In basic research, intellectual rigor and sentimental freedom necessarily alternate.

We must give scientists the opportunity through funding and time to pursue curiosity-based, long-term, basic-science research.

If you are funding researchers to look primarily for pathology, not surprisingly, that is what they are going to find and report on.

Time and time again, truly basic studies of simple experimental organisms have proved directly relevant to human biology and human disease. An investment in such basic studies is an effective investment indeed.

A researcher has to be able to identify key points and suggest intelligent questions.

Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.