“One has to be extremely careful with those enthusiastic announcements. This is not because one is doing something wrong. It’s because these are very difficult measurements.”
Witold Nazarewicz, University of Tennessee, on the announcement of discovery of element 118, The New York Times, October 17, 2006
“We selected a completely different nuclear reaction, performed with completely different people in a different laboratory. Everything we do is checked and double-checked.”
Ken Moody, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, on the discovery of element 118, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2006
“Our presence (in Iraq) is not only making Iraq a more dangerous place, it is interfering with our ability to deal with so many (matters) facing us, whether it's climate change, nuclear proliferation of other nations or the impoverishment of our oceans.”
Rush Holt, U.S. House of Representatives, on the war in Iraq, the Trenton Times, October 18, 2006
“If you watch science programmes on television, whether its Horizon or children's programmes, it's either a talking head with cuts away to animation or a very dry commentary. Children don't engage too much with that so I wanted to find a different approach.”
Robert Cywinski, University of Leeds, on animated science films he is developing for children, Yorkshire Post, November 4, 2006
“A couple of years ago [during the transit of Venus] we detected the drop in the total brightness of the sun by a tenth of a percent. Because Mercury is smaller [than Venus] and because it's more than twice as far away ... we'll be particularly interested to see if we can pick up this event.”
Jay Pasachoff, Williams College, on the transit of mercury on November 8, Baltimore Sun, November 7, 2006
“Physicists in particular tend to get almost emotional over helium. Almost all modern research that involves very low temperatures ... depends on helium.”
Robert Park, U. of Maryland, on helium shortages, Houston Chronicle, November 5, 2006
“There's nothing to stop the rally in uranium, unless nuclear has a big accident. We had 20 years of low prices. The cost of that is there had been virtually no investment in new mining projects.”
Thomas Neff, MIT, on the uranium industry, Bloomberg News, November 6, 2006
“There's no physics theory that can fully explain any baseball pitch, except the knuckleball.”
Porter Johnson, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA Today, October 26, 2006
“The idea is to combine two properties with one material.”
Lian Li, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, on trying to create a magnetic semiconductor, Knoxville News Sentinel, November 6, 2006
"We're talking about a large fraction of the public that believes in subjects that scientists believe are out of the question."
Costas Efthimiou, University of Central Florida, on the public’s belief in vampires, ghosts, and zombies, Associated Press, October 26, 2006