If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightly consider it an act of war.

I believe that one of the characteristics of the human race, possibly the one that is primarily responsible for its course of evolution, is that it has grown by creatively responding to failure.

Most of my scientific work has been basic research. There were no immediate uses for my discoveries, but today the radioisotopes are the workhorses of nuclear medicine, an isotope of plutonium is a major energy source in the space program, and the element americium is critical to the smoke detectors in every house in the country.

There are young people today who feel that we shouldn't have developed the atomic bomb, that it was a mistake. Through no fault of their own, they don't have this sense of history. They didn't live through this most terrifying period when we thought we were losing the race with Adolf Hitler.

The education of young people in science is at least as important, maybe more so, than the research itself.

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England.

All my life I've been surrounded by people who are smarter than I am, but I found I could always keep up by working hard.