I have had this view of the optimization of the electrode design for a long time. Historically we went through various phases in the work and eventually worked on large sheets - very large sheets - of palladium.

I am a caricature of what British science is about in the way I work.

It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.

American science is much more organized, much more hierarchical than British science has been.

Scientists are really very conscious of the fact that they stand on the shoulders of an enormous tree of preceding workers and that their own contribution is not so enormous.

Usually, if you have a new idea, you very rarely break through to anything like recognizable development or implementation of that idea the first time around - it takes two or three goes for the research community to return to the topic.

It doesn't matter whether you can or cannot achieve high temperature superconductivity or fuel cells, they will always be on the list because if you could achieve them they would be extremely valuable.