Culture

1. That is the reason why in research work, it is so important to give full attention to the smallest details especially the most unexpected ones, and to examine them thoroughly, because once fully developed, they may prove to be more important than the original target of the research program. 

------Henri Bernard Beer, the inventor of Dimensionally Stable Anodes (DSA) 

Ref:  J. Electrochem. Soc., 1980, 127(8): 303C.

2. *Learn something new every day; this is the greatest skill we have.

     *What are your colleagues working on, why is it important?

     *Search continuously for a better problem than the one you are working on at present. The choice of problem is the most important scientific decision you will ever make.

     *Problems difficult in one field are easy in other fields.

     *Intelligence, dedication and discipline required, but not genius.

------Louis Brus, Nobel Lecture 2023

3. To find something new, the first step is learning to live with uncertainty, and learning to accept failure as the norm because looking for the unknown is like being a trapeze artist who never works with a safety net. The second step is to open the door and invite serendipity to come in. The third step is knowing where to look to make discoveries. The fourth step is to cure yourself of "The Plague."

------K. Barry Sharpless (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 and 2022)

4. I would encourage the research community to be more rigorous in their approach. Too often, the focus is on the quantity of publications rather than the content and quality. Research quality could be significantly improved if we adhered to the “good old school” standards, where measurement uncertainties were carefully considered and reported. I always say, “seeing something once doesn’t mean you’ve truly seen it.” Ideally, I like to see results replicated three times to establish measurement reliability and give a standard deviation. Unfortunately, too often, observations are measured only once and cannot be reproduced. So, tighten up your ship, because, as Richard Feynman famously said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

With that, I wish you good luck out there. Nothing beats luck, but it usually only comes after hard work─and one must also be capable of recognizing it.

------Prof. Ib Chorkendorff (ACS Energy Lett. 2025, 10, 133–135)

5. The journey may be long, but every step brings you closer. The task may be tough, but persistence will lead to success. (路虽远，行则将至；事虽难，做则必成)

------Xunzi

6. *If you want to master something, teach it. The more you teach, the better you learn. Teaching is a powerful tool to learning.

*What I cannot create, I do not understand.

------Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize in Physics 1965)

7. It may be that this solution (Haber-Bosch process) is not the final one. Nitrogen bacteria teach us that Nature, with her sophisticated forms of the chemistry of living matter, still understands and utilizes methods which we do not as yet know how to imitate.

------Fritz Haber, Nobel Lecture 1920