He had this advice for students and Singapore: To succeed in science, a little rebellion is needed, and failing doesn’t hurt either.

“I have a sort of suspicion that’s where Singapore might be at a slight disadvantage … You’re very conformist, I mean not in a bad way, but I just wonder whether that strand of the national characteristic militates against real excellence in science, where you need to rebel against what other people think and be prepared to be an outcast and suffer failure for a while,” he said.

And the 66-year-old had his take on the subject of winning, too.

“I never been fond of games with winners and losers. I prefer collaboration actually. However, deep down I’m a very competitive person and I hate losing and I tend to avoid battles unless I can really win,” he said.

“Nature is so complicated and so difficult to understand that I think a certain humility is required to understand it properly. For this reason you don’t want to sort of encourage arrogance … nobody is good at every thing.”

Advertisement