A RANDOM WALK
Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov
Graphene Nobel Laureate and Professor of Physics, The University of Manchester
Scientific research is a race to a target which is not known. That’s both the beauty and the tragedy of it. The beauty is that at any moment you might discover new phenomena – you just need to keep your eyes wide open. The tragedy is that nobody can give you recipes of how to maximise your chances. The art of a good scientist is to design experiments in such a way so to amplify the science in question.
Graphene research has been extremely rich for unexpected results in many areas of science – from electronics to optics, from chemistry to biology. Such breadth of ideas attracted a lot of established and young scientists to this field. These talents did not only develop graphene research, but initiated a number of new directions; some explicitly, and some only vaguely connected to graphene. This is a very good example that in science ideas come first and the systems where they are realised - only second.
In this sense the National Graphene Institute came as a catalyst, a melting pot, to allow a faster exchange of ideas and the creation of new ones. Any projects are allowed in the National Graphene Institute as long as they take us beyond basic graphene research. The initiation of new projects, either scientific or industrial, is encouraged on all levels. The key part, however, is not the equipment, the labs and the clean rooms, but the dynamic and research-hungry staff. People with different backgrounds, different interests and with different motivations work together. The only common denominator between them is that what they are doing is not mundane and will lead to the creation of a new science and new technologies.
The variety of appearances of those people reflects all the stages one passes during the research cycle: brilliant idea, hard work, disappointment, occasional breakthrough, and hard work at each stage. But most important are the emotions: genuine and strong. Every single step of this cycle is an emotional battle – these people take it personally, and that’s why they are the best in their professions.
