If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we will be at a disadvantage...we would look at considering perhaps duties that would offset that cost.

Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre.

Science is really about describing the way the universe works in one aspect or another in all branches of science-how a life-form works, how this works, how that works. ... You have to have a natural curiosity for that.

A cap and trade bill will likely increase the costs of electricity. . . . These costs will be passed on to the consumers. But the issue is, how does it actually...how do we interact in terms with the rest of the world? If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we would be at a disadvantage. . . . We should look at considering duties that would offset that cost.

I've always been inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, who articulated his Dream of an America where people are judged not by skin color but "by the content of their character." In the scientific world, people are judged by the content of their ideas. Advances are made with new insights, but the final arbitrator of any point of view are experiments that seek the unbiased truth, not information cherry picked to support a particular point of view.

Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'être. Virtually all of our aunts and uncles had Ph.D.s in science or engineering, and it was taken for granted that the next generation of Chu's were to follow the family tradition. When the dust had settled, my two brothers and four cousins collected three MDs, four Ph.D.s and a law degree. I could manage only a single advanced degree.

However, when my parents married in 1945, China was in turmoil and the possibility of returning grew increasingly remote, and they decided to begin their family in the United States.