Scientists contribute in a variety of ways and I don't think I can singular one even including [Albert] Einstein, that I can say that he's the best. We don't work like the best basketball player and the best musician and so on. Science is a collective effort.

One of the things I enjoy most is to be left alone with a book.

I found with my students they don't necessarily look at journals any more, but they print right away from the internet what's relevant to what's he doing you see.

We still don't understand how the big bang and evolving all the way to the human species and so on. So all of this is going to be a very, very exciting to the new people.

Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups.

I think the Nobel Prize helps for a number of reasons. Number one, if I can be frank, there is these people will feel by getting a Nobel Prize that I'm one of them, that it is possible to contribute on the world map of science and technology. And the other thing also which I'm hoping for is that the government in Egypt is willing and interested in promoting science and technology and this is an ideal time now to be able to do something.

I came from Egypt and I owe Egypt a lot to what I am now.