Now a cholera epidemic was sweeping through Southeast Asia and south Asia in the early 1970s, so I started medical school and I joined a laboratory to work on this.
It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
Whereas, generally speaking, zinc reacts suitably only with the first members of the alkyl iodides, with magnesium it is possible to use bromides, iodides, and in many cases, chlorides.
Organic compounds exist in which a hydrogen atom, joined to the carbon, acquires acid properties as a result of the proximity of certain functional groupings.
At this point I was strongly advised that I was too young socially to go to college so I took a second senior year at Andover, another boarding school.
Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion.
The tremendous honour of the Nobel Prize is of the strongest incentive to me in my work, while the amount of the Prize will greatly simplify my task and provide me with much valuable help in my work.
I believe that we have been doing this not primarily to achieve riches or even honour, but rather because we were interested in the work, enjoyed doing it and felt very strongly that it was worthwhile.
As I noted in my Nobel lecture, an early insight in my work on the economics of information concerned the problem of appropriability - the difficulty that those who pay for information have in getting returns.
Once in a while, I have to pinch myself to remind myself I am Nobel laureate, but that is not part of my work plan every day.
In 1970, I had begun work on the basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor which has later become the model compound for the development of protein NMR, molecular dynamics, and experimental folding studies in other laboratories.
From a very early age onwards, people's attention had been attracted to the volatile substances, characterized by strong smells or flavours, which are among the large variety of substances which form within plants; these were used partly for therapeu...
In choosing a hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid. I clearly would have been burned at the stake in another age.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world b...
To me, one of the best faces America has ever projected is the face of a Peace Corps volunteer. That face symbolizes this country: young, curious, brimming with idealism and hope - and a real, honest compassion.
As soon as chemists have a definite conception of the internal structure of the molecule of an organic compound, they are able to tackle the task of producing these substances by artificial methods, i.e. by synthesis, as we call it.
The final outcome cannot be known, either to the originator of a new theory, or to his colleagues and critics, who are bent on falsifying it. Thus, the scientific innovator may feel all the more lonely and uncertain.
The Nobel Prize is given as a personal award but it also honors the field of research in which I have worked and it also honors my students and colleagues.
I've said it before about the Nobel Prize: it's like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary.
It was just using the liquid shampoo - the Russians have one very similar to the stuff we use on the Shuttle - you just wet your hair with it and then wipe it out.
Probably the single most important thing about the Nobel Prize for most people is whether they get the coveted parking space on campus.
