David Gross

Reading history, one rarely gets the feeling of the true nature of scientific development, in which the element of farce is as great as the element of triumph. ”

Indeed, the most important product of knowledge is ignorance. ”

From the age of 13, I was attracted to physics and mathematics. My interest in these subjects derived mostly from popular science books that I read avidly. ”

Actually, I was more or less determined to be a theoretical physicist at the age of thirteen. ”

The early 1960s, when I started my graduate studies at UC Berkeley, were a period of experimental supremacy and theoretical impotence. ”

To understand the universe in the state that it began in, the so-called Big Bang, we need laws of physics that work better than our current set of rules and procedures, which break down when we try to push them back to the beginning. ”

The progress of science is much more muddled than is depicted in most history books. This is especially true of theoretical physics, partly because history is written by the victorious. ”

The advice I tell students is to think about the big problems. I mean, work on anything you can work on where you can make progress. But always keep in mind the big problems. ”