Karl Barry Sharpless Quotes

• What the ocean was to the child, the Periodic Table is to the chemist.

  Karl Barry Sharpless

  Children, Ocean, Tables

  Nobel lecture, 2001.

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• When I started doing chemistry, I did it the way I fished - for the excitement, the discovery, the adventure, for going after the most elusive catch imaginable in uncharted seas.

  Karl Barry Sharpless

  Adventure, Discovery, Sea

  Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

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• The discipline, nonetheless, is exacting: everything that can be observed should be observed, even if it is only recalled as the bland background from which the intriguing bits pop out like Venus in the evening sky. The goal is always finding something new, hopefully unimagined and, better still, hitherto unimaginable.

  Karl Barry Sharpless

  Sky, Goal, Discipline

  "Searching for New Reactivity". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

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• We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.

  Karl Barry Sharpless

  Player, Games, Asking Questions

  Speech at the Nobel Banquet, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 2001.

  8 Copy quote

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