Steven Chu Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Steven Chu's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Former United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 4 quotes on this page collected since February 28, 1948! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • Suppose you had a small electrical fire and... a structural engineer [looked] at your home's wiring [and] reports that the wiring is "shot" and there is a 50% chance that your house would burn down in the next few years unless you replace all the wiring. The job will cost $20,000... so you get an independent assessment. The next engineer agrees with the first warning. You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you find the one engineer in 1,000 that is willing to give you the answer you want, "Your family is not in danger" or you can change the wiring.

    Jobs   Home   Independent  
  • 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.

    Brother   Two   Degrees  
    Interview with Spencer Michels in "The NewsHour" on PBS, May 2, 2007.
  • The ideal protective layer for a lithium metal anode needs to be chemically stable to protect against the chemical reactions with the electrolyte and mechanically strong to withstand the expansion of the lithium during charge.

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

  • 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.

    Light   Years   Car  
  • I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

    "Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 20, 2009.
  • If there is a regulation that says you have to do something-whether it be putting in seat belts, catalytic converters, clean air for coal plants, clean water-the first tack that the lawyers use, among others things, and that companies use, is that it's going to drive the electricity bill up, drive the cost of cars up, drive everything up. It repeatedly has been demonstrated that once the engineers start thinking about it, it's actually far less than the original estimates. We should remember that when we hear this again, because you will hear it again.

  • I also developed an interest in sports, and played in informal games at a nearby school yard where the neighborhood children met to play touch football, baseball, basketball and occasionally, ice hockey.

  • Coal is my worst nightmare.

    "Nightmare On Coal Street". www.desmogblog.com. December 19, 2008.
  • For the better part of my last semester at Garden City High, I constructed a physical pendulum and used it to make a "precision" measurement of gravity. The years of experience building things taught me skills that were directly applicable to the construction of the pendulum. Twenty-five years later, I was to develop a refined version of this measurement using laser-cooled atoms in an atomic fountain interferometer.

    "Steven Chu - Biographical". www.nobelprize.org. 1997.
  • Since I walked in the door as secretary of energy, I've been doing everything in our powers to do what we can to reduce these gas prices. ... So, of course we don't want the price of gasoline to go up; we want it to go down.

    Doors   Energy   Gasoline  
  • Geometry was the first exciting course I remember.

  • My physics teacher, Thomas Miner was particularly gifted. To this day, I remember how he introduced the subject of physics. He told us we were going to learn how to deal with very simple questions such as how a body falls due to the acceleration of gravity.

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

    "Times Tough for Energy Overhaul" by Neil King Jr. and Stephen Power, www.wsj.com. December 12, 2008.
  • I believe [the Department of Energy] should be judged not by the money we direct to a particular State or district, company, university or national lab, but by the character of our decisions. The Department of Energy serves the country as a Department of Science, a Department of Innovation, and a Department of Nuclear Security.

  • Science is really about describing the way the universe works in one aspect or another in all branches of science-how a life-form works, how this works, how that works. ... You have to have a natural curiosity for that.

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

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

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

    "Lasers Slow Atom for Scrutiny". The New York Times, July 13, 1986.
  • 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.

  • 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?"

    Mother   Morning   Nice  
    "The Science Guy". www.nytimes.com. April 16, 2009.
  • 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.

    "Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 20, 2009.
  • 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.

  • I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure. The tedium was relieved by a few courses that seem to be qualitatively different. Geometry was the first exciting course I remember. Instead of memorizing facts, we were asked to think in clear, logical steps. Beginning from a few intuitive postulates, far reaching consequences could be derived, and I took immediately to the sport of proving theorems.

  • 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.

    Letter from Secretary Steven Chu to Energy Department Employees, energy.gov. February 1, 2013.
  • 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.

    Steven Chu - Biographical, www.nobelprize.org. 1997.
  • By the fourth grade, I graduated to an erector set and spent many happy hours constructing devices of unknown purpose where the main design criterion was to maximize the number of moving parts and overall size.

    Moving   Numbers   Design  
  • A cap and trade bill will likely increase the costs of electricity. . . . These costs will be passed on to the consumers. But the issue is, how does it actually...how do we interact in terms with the rest of the world? If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we would be at a disadvantage. . . . We should look at considering duties that would offset that cost.

    Country   Issues   Energy  
  • Just refrigerator efficiency saves more energy than all that we're generating from renewables, excluding hydroelectric power... I cannot impress upon you how important energy efficiency is. It doesn't mean you eat lukewarm food and your beers are lukewarm. You can still have it; you just make a better thing

    Mean   Beer   Important  
  • In the summer after kindergarten, a friend introduced me to the joys of building plastic model airplanes and warships. By the fourth grade, I graduated to an erector set and spent many happy hours constructing devices of unknown purpose where the main design criterion was to maximize the number of moving parts and overall size. The living room rug was frequently littered with hundreds of metal “girders” and tiny nuts and bolts surrounding half-finished structures. An understanding mother allowed me to keep the projects going for days on end.

    Summer   Mother   Moving  
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We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 4 quotes from the Former United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, starting from February 28, 1948! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!

Steven Chu

  • Born: February 28, 1948
  • Occupation: Former United States Secretary of Energy