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John C. Polanyi
(23 Jan 1929 - )
German-Canadian chemist and educator who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986 for his contributions to 'a new field of research in chemistry... in which the extremely weak infrared emission from a newly-formed molecule is measured.' He was active in the peace and disarmament movements. In his speeches and writings, he expounded on the nature of science and its relation to creativity, art, and the responsibility scientists have to forging peace, solving world problems and acting as a force for positive change in society.
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Science Quotes by John C. Polanyi (9)
Authority in science exists to be questioned, since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow.
— John C. Polanyi
Faced with the admitted difficulty of managing the creative process, we are doubling our efforts to do so. Is this because science has failed to deliver, having given us nothing more than nuclear power, penicillin, space travel, genetic engineering, transistors, and superconductors? Or is it because governments everywhere regard as a reproach activities they cannot advantageously control? They felt that way about the marketplace for goods, but trillions of wasted dollars later, they have come to recognize the efficiency of this self-regulating system. Not so, however, with the marketplace for ideas.
— John C. Polanyi
Quoted in Martin Moskovits (ed.), Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates Lectures (1995), 8.
I knew, however, that it would cost ten times what I had available in order to build a molecular beam machine. I decided to follow a byway, rather than the highway. It is a procedure I have subsequently recommended to beginning scientists in this country, where research strategy is best modelled on that used by Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham.
(British General James Wolfe defeated the French defending Quebec in 1759 after scaling a cliff for a surprise attack.)
(British General James Wolfe defeated the French defending Quebec in 1759 after scaling a cliff for a surprise attack.)
— John C. Polanyi
'A Scientist and the World He Lives In', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
See also: | Research (221)
Idealism is the highest form of reason.
— John C. Polanyi
See also: | Reason (71)
It is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental science the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)... despise utility. But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making of discoveries, rather than before.
Concerning the allocation of research funds.
Concerning the allocation of research funds.
— John C. Polanyi
Speech to the Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science, Toronto (2 Jun 1996)
It takes a trained and discerning researcher to keep the goal in sight, and to detect evidence of the creeping progress toward it.
— John C. Polanyi
from a speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986)
Nothing is more irredeemably irrelevant than bad science.
— John C. Polanyi
quoted in H. W. Wilson Co., Nobel Prize Winners (1987)
Science is an enterprise that can only flourish if it puts the truth ahead of nationality, ethnicity, class and color.
— John C. Polanyi
from a speech at the University of California at Berkeley (1994) quoted in Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., Gale Research, (1998)
[Intellectual courage is] the quality that allows one to believe in one's judgement in the face of disappointment and widespread skepticism. Intellectual courage is even rarer than physical courage.
— John C. Polanyi
'A Scientist and the World He Lives In', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
See also: | Courage (10)
