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To me the greatest moment in an experiment is always just before I learn whether the particular idea is a good or a bad one. Thus even a failure is exciting, and most of my ideas have of course been wrong. But this time it worked!

— Ivar Giaever Nobel lecture (1973)

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Failure

More quotes by Ivar Giaever

If you want to do good research, it's important not to know too much.

If I have learned anything as a scientist it is that one should not make things complicated when a simple explanation will do.

Nobel lecture (1973)

How can you possibly measure the average temperature for the whole earth and come up with a fraction of a degree?

It is acceptable to debate whether the mass of the proton changes over time, but is the evidence for global warming really incontrovertible? It is a new religion.

The facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperatures it has gone up .8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ivar Giaever (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.