At some point, the time will have passed when individuals are capable of major discoveries.

The short-term vision is: I research on something which I can use tomorrow, and for some politicians it is even better if it's today. But if you do this, you can only do targeted research. If you only do targeted research, you lose the side-routes.

Good people climb quickly - just like in a company.

We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature. The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.

Pure science - this vision of the universe as 15 billion light years across - I am bedazzled and awed by it.

Once you start putting in political subtext, it does create intellectually challenging science-fiction, but with 'Pacific Rim,' I always thought it would be a shame if kids couldn't go see this movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters because it seemed to have a political point of view.

One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war.

I was always exploring relationships between art and science.