Through this additional support, we must renew our commitment to provide talented young people with the opportunity to build scientific careers based on their curiosity, the same opportunity that was provided to me when I began my work.

My grandfather on my mother's side was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; my other grandfather was a lawyer, and one time Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

While at Cal Tech I talked a lot with Jon Mathews, then a junior faculty member; he taught me how to use the Institute's computer; we also went on hikes together.

The Nobel award occasions a unique celebration of the vision of science by the public at large. The prestige the prize confers today is largely due to the extraordinary diligence of the Nobel committees.

When I entered graduate school I had carried out the instructions given to me by my father and had knocked on both Murray Gell-Mann's and Feynman's doors and asked them what they were currently doing. Murray wrote down the partition function for the three-dimensional Ising model and said it would be nice if I could solve it (at least that is how I remember the conversation). Feynman's answer was 'nothing'.

The hardest problems of pure and applied science can only be solved by the open collaboration of the world-wide scientific community.

Through this additional support, we must renew our commitment to provide talented young people with the opportunity to build scientific careers based on their curiosity, the same opportunity that was provided to me when I began my work.