Steven Chu Quotes

At Rochester, I came with the same emotions as many of the entering freshman: everything was new, exciting and a bit overwhelming, but at least nobody had heard of my brothers and cousins.

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

Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.

As the saying goes, the Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions. The same opportunity lies before us with energy efficiency and clean energy.

The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.

So imagine a world 6 degrees warmer. It's not going to recognize geographical boundaries. It's not going to recognize anything. So agriculture regions today will be wiped out.

I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure.

Geometry was the first exciting course I remember.

I'm the least-educated person in my immediate family. My two other brothers have multiple advanced degrees, and I only have one. [...] Actually, now that I've got a Nobel Prize, I feel equal.

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.

Sustainable energy is the equivalent of the U.S. moon shot.

If I were emperor of the world, I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade.

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.

I called my mother up when they announced the Nobel Prize, waiting until 7 in the morning. She said, "That's nice - and when are you going to see me next?"

What the American family does not want is to pay an increasing fraction of their budget, their precious dollars, for energy costs.

Coal is my worst nightmare.

Of course we don't want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down.

Switching to light-coloured roofs and roadways would have the equivalent effect on greenhouse gas emissions to taking one billion cars off the road for eleven years.

Pick the right sized pot, don't pick a pot five times bigger, twice as big.